State of the Game: APB 2018

[killerskull 111]

I guess Ill be waiting till spring time for the full, finished release of the new code/engine.

[Zolerox 564]

1 hour ago, Kewlin said:

 

Not necessarily as huge as you might think. LO had said in a previous blog post that the player progression is different between console and PC, and they were planning on adding two new contacts as part of their plan to fix that.

 

I can only assume that these two new contacts are those, and probably won't add much if any new content to the game (beside missions, which is certainly big, I will admit.)

On the contrary while yes the 2 new contacts are obvious (wish they had some cooler clothing and story) 2 things I want to share with you all some may not know

 

1. The spots for these "new" contacts are already there here's the 2 spots.

Here's Lynette Casey

 

 

Overview of Contact area



 

Predicted Contact Placement



 

Building's Decorations



 

And here is Lucas Van Rooyen

 

Interior Overlook



 

 

Contact's Laptop Equipment



 

 

Behind the bar



 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Here's what the contacts look like for those who don't know (they also appear in the "character stand by screen" The "beach screen" for enforcers and 'night club screen" for criminals.

Lynette Casey - Prentiss Tigers

another picture (she is the 3rd one on the left holding the smg with a scope and silencer)

 

"This is a rendering I found online of Lynette. The file data for this photo said it was created back on May 5th, 2010.

That date might seem irrelevant, but that's over a month before the original APB went retail (in other words it wasn't in beta anymore)."

 

Lucas Van Rooyen - Blood Rose

 

 

Here's a few websites it looks like these contacts were meant to unlock those 2 unused equipment slots.

http://apb-online.org/forum/15-7291-1

http://apb-r.ru/news_542-kakie-svyaznie-mogut-poyavitsya-v-igre_.htmlсвязные

 

APB DB page for Lynette Casey - http://apbdb.com/contacts/Waterfront_E12/

 

and

 

APB DB page for Lucas Van Rooyen - http://apbdb.com/contacts/Waterfront_C12/

 

 

a 3d spin of Lynette Casey

 

and 3d spin of Lucas Van Rooyen

.

 

 

and 2.

LO previously released "abandoned" content so fill the next 2 contacts with the same 

 

 

Here's my list of things i hope the new contacts give (whether it makes sense or not)

 

 

"Neoprene_Facewear_Mask"

Look something like this

or this

or that

 

 

 

"Body Suit Tank"

Even has an icon and if you didn't realise it Lynette is literally shown on the beach so this item seems obvious enough it's her's

 

Not just clothing but there are little things on "apb vault" showing "new" hairstyles.

 

"short afro"

"Swirly cornrows"

"Receding Hairline"

are a few.

 

 

Some of the "clothing" that was not released (still not 100% sure about the goggles) are allready "in game" used on contacts

 

Again link to this post - good old days

 

screenshot showing them in the game files

 

"'Fingerless Gauntlet' (R/L)"

 Being used by: 'Ty Durrant', 'Kaspar Danko' and 'Orlenz Morreti'

 

"'Gauntlet' (R/L)" (with the fingers covered of course)

Being used by: 'Templeton' Only.

 

 

'Police Badge'

Found on: Miguel Estebano

 

 

'Prentiss Tigers Badge (male and female)'

- if you scroll up Lynette Casey is wearing one

Found on: Akiko X, Violet Prentiss, Chiza, Orlenz Moretti & Chung Hee

 

'Safety Goggles (head)' customizable 

Found on: Javez (Valentines Outfit)

 

 

Safety Goggle (neck) again a customizable one (not sure if either of those goggles are on armas if so please point out which pack)

Found on: Templeton, Kaspar Danko, Stu Phoenix

 

 

'(Second Wave) Webbing Vest' (there is an armas clothing item that is Close to this with big boxes in the front but not this exact one)

Found on: Ty Durrant

 

 

'(Second Wave) Webbing Vest (Holster)'

Found on: Darryl Kent

 

"big post" 

 

 

Merry Christmas Little Orbit and may the next year bring brand new surprises and "experiences"

Motorbikes and horses when?

@MattScott

 

Edited December 29, 2018 by Zolerox
Forgot to say thank you silly me

[greenfield 135]

Thank you for your hard work LO. Wish you and all the players a Happy New Year!

 

[vsb 6171]

9 minutes ago, Zolerox said:

1. The spots for these "new" contacts are already there here's the 2 spots.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

the enforcer location is where Simon Tran (now the asylum enforcer contact) used to be

 

the criminal location is where Britney Bloodrose (now next to Byron Bloodrose, when g1 inexplicably decided to shuffle contacts around) used to be

[Chinook 144]

My 2 cents:

 

Epidemic, while a decent event, shouldn't have replaced headless horseman event. Finding both of them a space of 2-3 weeks in calendar shouldn't be too difficult.

 

Re-balancing things that haven't been touched since forever takes time. Do more of this in baby-steps.

 

Events shouldn't require playing on so many different days to complete, or at least there should be more time to do them than 14 days if they require playing on 10 different days. That said, I'm fine if they take similar amount or even slightly more hours to accomplish. My issue is having time to do strictly limited amount of daily stuff on 10 days within 2 weeks while doing the same amount of stuff within 5 days instead is not a problem, as the 5/14 gives much more room for scheduling than 10/14.

 

Beyond that, I wish you a very productive 2019.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Chinook
added a sentence

[Zolerox 564]

4 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

the enforcer location is where Simon Tran (now the asylum enforcer contact) used to be

 

the criminal location is where Britney Bloodrose (now next to Byron Bloodrose, when g1 inexplicably decided to shuffle contacts around) used to be

I knew that, why did they shuffle them around again? ty durrant looks lonely

 

 

[Kewlin 692]

12 minutes ago, Zolerox said:

On the contrary. . .

 

So. . . what was contrary to what I said?

 

Also, the stuff you linked to from Innova clearly has nothing to do with what G1 intended, note how many of the things are already given by other contacts (and that nothing on Innova had anything to do with G1 APB.)

 

 

2 minutes ago, Chinook said:

~snip~

 

Agreed on all points.

[CookiePuss 5379]

3 minutes ago, Chinook said:

My 2 cents:

 

Epidemic, while a decent event, shouldn't have replaced headless horseman event. Finding both of them a space of 2-3 weeks in calendar shouldn't be too difficult.

 

Re-balancing things that haven't been touched since forever takes time. Do more of this in baby-steps.

 

Events shouldn't require playing on so many different days to complete, or at least there should be more time to do them than 14 days if they require playing on 10 different days. That said, I'm fine if they take similar amount or even slightly more hours to accomplish. My issue is having time to do strictly limited amount of daily stuff on 10 days within 2 weeks while doing the same amount of stuff within 5 days instead is not a problem, as the 5/14 gives much more room for scheduling than 10/14.

Im sure you already knew. But the 10/14 days title was to reward completionists only.

All others took at most 5/14 days to acquire.

That being said, Matt does seem to hear complaints, so who knows what we will get next event.

Edited December 29, 2018 by CookiePuss

[Chinook 144]

3 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

Im sure you already knew. But the 10/14 days title was to reward completionists only.

All others took at most 5/14 days to acquire.

How to not want a title that says 'Slayer'?

[CookiePuss 5379]

5 minutes ago, Chinook said:

How to not want a title that says 'Slayer'?

Easy, realize the title is actually "Santa Slayer".

 

[Chinook 144]

6 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

Easy, realize the title is actually "Santa Slayer".

 

You mean it's yet another thing that isn't what it actually says on the tin?

 

[Dezire 107]

Thank you Matthew, very cool!

[CookiePuss 5379]

Just now, Chinook said:

You mean it's yet another thing that isn't what it actually says on the tin?

 

Well how about that... "slayer" is definitely the better title.

Kinda wish I'd have kept up with it now.

[Zolerox 564]

1 hour ago, Kewlin said:

 

So. . . what was contrary to what I said?

 

Also, the stuff you linked to from Innova clearly has nothing to do with what G1 intended, note how many of the things are already given by other contacts (and that nothing on Innova had anything to do with G1 APB.)

 

What i was saying i meant "and probably won't add much if any new content to the game "

I was pointing out possible things they could add (i just stumbled over myself trying to say it in my typical way)

 

*cough ntec7 compact*

Edited December 30, 2018 by Zolerox

[Lord Cashpoint 269]

1 hour ago, Zolerox said:

I knew that, why did they shuffle them around again? ty durrant looks lonely

 

I thought they shifted the Criminal contacts in Waterfront due to the glitch of not being able to be witnessed in that corner of the map.

 

They've also moved contacts like Violet Prentiss around for some reason or another - at least Devil Dog was amusing to see in new perches.

 

[Kewlin 692]

30 minutes ago, Zolerox said:

What i was saying i meant "and probably won't add much if any new content to the game "

I was pointing out possible things they could add (i just stumbled over myself trying to say it in my typical way)

 

*cough ntec7 compact*

 

Yeah, but they already said that the purpose of them is to re-add existing content. I'm not saying what you're saying couldn't happen, but it's entirely speculation.

 

 

1 hour ago, CookiePuss said:

Easy, realize the title is actually "Santa Slayer".

 

 

Wait, are you fucking serious? And to think I almost fell for it. How could it go from looking like one of the most badass titles to actually being one of the worst, lol.

 

*EDIT* Okay, you were trolling.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Kewlin

[Darkzero3802 611]

Matt there needs to be more quality of life updates to APB as there are still alot of problems that need addressing. Without some form of fix for these issues a new engine wont make things 100% better.

1. Threat and matchmaking. This needs immediate attention to remedy the issues that are improper threats by alot of the vet community causing grief among the new players. The system needs an overhaul as well as how easy it is to threat up. As it stands getting top threat is not only unsatisfying but for many tryhards it gives them an excuse to threat shame anyone who isnt gold threat. This in turn well help matchmaking find better balanced matches for everyone.

2. Community. This has been a problem for yrs, there are alot of toxic players in APB that threat shame others (mentioned above) grief just to annoy others, encourage less then stellar gameplay (cheating and bug abusing) and overall just make the quality of life in APB horrid. LO needs to take a crack at all this to change the APB culture into one that ppl want to be around and that is fun and helpful for all otherwise new players will quickly leave the game and the player base wont improve.

3. Cheating. Simply put LO needs to do more in this front as there are quite afew closet cheaters getting past battle eye.

[Kewlin 692]

7 minutes ago, Darkzero3802 said:

2. Community. This has been a problem for yrs, there are alot of toxic players in APB that threat shame others (mentioned above) grief just to annoy others, encourage less then stellar gameplay (cheating and bug abusing) and overall just make the quality of life in APB horrid. LO needs to take a crack at all this to change the APB culture into one that ppl want to be around and that is fun and helpful for all otherwise new players will quickly leave the game and the player base wont improve.

 

If I'm to be perfectly honest. . . APB would not be as fun without APB's culture.

 

I'll agree that there are things that need to be addressed, such as griefing, cheating, ghosting, etc., like you mentioned, but I don't think the culture as a whole should change, and I don't think it's really possible to "change" the culture without simply removing half of the playerbase. Half the reason I stick around APB is because I like its playerbase, which, I'll be honest, I actually think is pretty damned helpful to new players. Sure, people are assholes to anyone who's bad at the game, but that happens in nearly every PVP game, and I see plenty of people willing to give new players information and help them out whenever they ask.

 

As for glitch abusing, that's kinda' a fine line. For example, everybody jump-kicks doors, and quite honestly APB would be a far worse game (I.E. defense would be even more overpowered) without jump-kicking. Granted, I can't think of more glitches that really add to the game being abused, but I also can't think of all that many that get abused often negatively.

 

I'd say as far as new player retention goes, I'd attribute far more new player loss to APB being an extremely bizarre, complex game that has an extremely high skill-floor.

[Haganu 104]

I appreciate the honesty and self-reflection. This seemed to be lacking massively at the previous devs now that I think about it. Reflecting on the mistakes made helps learning from them, even though you already admit plenty that you're not good at it yet. 

 

On the contrary however, you can't be not good at it for too long. 

The transparency and feedback is there, but at some point results have to pop up. I do think Little Orbit will be able to deliver, so I hope people are patient enough.

 

 

I wish I applied for any of the volunteer programs, I'd like to help out in any way I can.

 

I'm not without questionmarks, but the way Little Orbit has been sofar is far better than Reloaded has ever been.

Since 2013, at least.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Haganu

[Jazeker 1082]

@MattScottVery cool. Maybe entertain the thought of having any sort of leveling progress with the challenge mode/ alternate districts. That is, any new ones and the ones we have now. Being able to grind a bunch different stuff just helps a game.

 

To give a totally random example; always thought having 'FightClub level' would be a 'nice to have', even if it's just an repeating exp bar and a number behind our names.

 

Obviously we got joker tickets, but yeah, new initiatives maybe.

 

Having *a* FightClub level. (Matt if I could ever get an edit button that would be awesome, lol)

[Zolerox 564]

My "slay bells event" guide is 100% completed first time I've done an event guide BEFORE the event ended.

I would have completed it sooner but unfortunately slayer title made it so it took at least 10 days.

 

Guide. Slay Bells - Christmas 2018 - Event

 

 

Here's a link and images i picked to show a preview of it and maybe when we get the new engine we can get "clean" icon's and fix apb's "Pixelation" and decal's being low res.

 

So for 2019 with the "engine slight update 3.5" Will these "image fuzz" issues go away?

 

The below examples is my recent work I spent a few hours editing icons making things look sharper and cleaner

 

RED is my "edited" pictures

the one's with a "BLUE" outline are the Original Icon's as they appear in game.

*note The left image has 2 boxes the box that says "more" is too low and misses the word,

The 1st box is just useless in general.

The "border" under the word Tradable is missing.

 Gun's

 

 

Big Sheet

RED Outlines are My edits

BLUE outlines are the original icon's as they appear in game 

*note the slay bells icon has green and yellow "digital fuzz" while the snowflake has multiple grey lines , The Santa hat "ho ho ho now i have a..." has light red when it should be red, The "Santa slayer" has a little bit of fuzz near the face area.

 

*note2 The rest are less event tied and more APB in general icon, The "new weapons" icon has green and yellow fuzz,, "new primitives" icon has a lot of issues red fuzz yellow fuzz grey for some reason, The "joker ticket" icon (at default brightness) has grey outline issues the J and O are attached etc. "new clothing item" has a few issues some fuzz around the collar.

 

*Note the "slay bells" icon's lvl 1-9 the "X" and "V" are a tad crappy (blue outline) so i redrew those as well and lowered them a bit.

 

so. @MattScott

 

2019 "engine Update" Q&A possible?

 

as you can see I'm interested in an assets upgrade (icon's customisation limits etc.)

 

 

 

[Ketog 1032]

8 hours ago, Zolerox said:

~Zolerox long blogpost like post~

 

Well , your post was as cool as Matt's blogpost to be honest , glad i seen this

 

thanks for your blogpost Zolerox

[KnifuWaifu 499]

9 hours ago, Zolerox said:

"big post" 

I agree with smexy Eggman and want to say that I loved this post too. I knew there were people in those static scenes that I had never seen before and totally agree that APB's files are full of junk that could easily fill up some New Contact rewards for us (like a 0 slot ATAC? /s).

 

Also was originally upset that they're predicted to be WF contacts as WF is a ghost town most days but realistically new Contacts there mean it'll breathe new life into that lesser used district as the older players with everything unlocked will want in so I'm all in. 

Edited December 30, 2018 by KnifuWaifu
@ggspct spammer man - this is what quality looks like FYI.

[Darkzero3802 611]

7 hours ago, Kewlin said:

 

If I'm to be perfectly honest. . . APB would not be as fun without APB's culture.

 

I'll agree that there are things that need to be addressed, such as griefing, cheating, ghosting, etc., like you mentioned, but I don't think the culture as a whole should change, and I don't think it's really possible to "change" the culture without simply removing half of the playerbase. Half the reason I stick around APB is because I like its playerbase, which, I'll be honest, I actually think is pretty damned helpful to new players. Sure, people are assholes to anyone who's bad at the game, but that happens in nearly every PVP game, and I see plenty of people willing to give new players information and help them out whenever they ask.

 

As for glitch abusing, that's kinda' a fine line. For example, everybody jump-kicks doors, and quite honestly APB would be a far worse game (I.E. defense would be even more overpowered) without jump-kicking. Granted, I can't think of more glitches that really add to the game being abused, but I also can't think of all that many that get abused often negatively.

 

I'd say as far as new player retention goes, I'd attribute far more new player loss to APB being an extremely bizarre, complex game that has an extremely high skill-floor.

Jump dashing with an obj is another prime example of bug abusing. theres a reason carrying an obj restricts your ability to move and jump dashing means you can be long gone by the time it takes the other team to respawn. Holding a shield ontop of a car to be able to car surf is another example of bug abusing. I never said change everything but I am definitively saying to change the culture in regards to the negatives and the culture of abusing bugs to gain an advantage.

[Atomkraftwerk 29]

WHERE ARE THE 50% Sales G1 did ????? since LO took over there are no 50% sales !

Edited December 30, 2018 by Atomkraftwerk