APB along with RTW goes down under

[TwwIX]

http://eu.apb.com/en/news/announcements/2010/09/16/end-of-an-era

These "developers" should be ashamed of themselves for investing all of that money into this piece of crap. Everybody saw this coming except for them. That's what you get for being so arrogant and overconfident. People were telling them to delay the release and drop the business model but they wouldn't listen and look what it got them. The game had no legs to stand alone let alone walk on. All it had going for itself is that overhyped costume designer. And even that was lacking features and content. I am just glad that i managed to convince some people to avoid purchasing this tripe after that dismal beta. Those who worked on the game should stay away from any future game developing. At least the ones who lead the development humongous pile of shit.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Thats a bit harsh. I agree that APB wasnt a very good game, and neither was Crackdown 2, but they were far from terrible games.

 

[TwwIX]

Thats a bit harsh. I agree that APB wasnt a very good game, and neither was Crackdown 2, but they were far from terrible games.

Crackdown 2 wasn't developed by them. Whatever "talent" they had, left and formed Ruffian Games to develop the sequel. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't much of an improvement over the original game. This game, however, is quite terrible and deserves the outcome.

 

[Acepilotf14]

APB pretty much bombed badly, yeah. Such is capitalism.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Crackdown 2 wasn't developed by them. Whatever "talent" they had, left and formed Ruffian Games to develop the sequel. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't much of an improvement over the original game. This game, however, is quite terrible and deserves the outcome.

Whoops. For some reason I thought the people from Crackdown 1 had left and the rest of RT developed Crackdown 2, my bad.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

thats maybe a bit harsh. Yes they didnt do it properly, it wasnt a good game but unfortunately cos of the present gaming market its becoming all the more common for people to put more money than they can afford to on the development of one game. What they definitely shouldnt have done was make an MMO.

I dont know why devs and pubs keep trying there are only a few successful MMOs out there that arent WoW and the rest is a wasteland littered with the corpses of games like: the matrix online, hellgate, APB and others

 

[TwwIX]

The concept had a lot of potential. That's what really infuriates me and many others that were looking forward to this game. I mean, how can you **** up such a simple concept as cops and robbers? They did everything wrong that was possible. From the business model to downright to the core gameplay. The game was ridden with bugs, balancing issues and blatant cheaters. For ****s sake, they turned off punk buster several times because it was interfering with the game's code. This was just a big cluster **** of bad decisions.

 

[bam23]

hot on the heels of patch 1.4.2

 

[Matorbogl]

Next stop on the MMO Failure Express, SWOTOR.

 

[TwwIX]

Next stop on the MMO Failure Express, SWOTOR.

Bioware has the proven talent and capital to handle a project of this scale.
Realtime Worlds had neither.

 

[OmegaX]

So they are shutting down the entire game? I could have told you that after playing the beta.

 

[Shakermaker]

Currently reading through this:

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong/
http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong-part-2/
http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong-part-3/

Luke Halliwell is one of the lead devs who had worked on APB since its inception. He has done some soul searching and writes about what went wrong during the project. Very candid write-up.

 

[Ravioli]

Dont know if this guy is legit but supposedly he worked on it and is now spilling the beans on internal development and what went wrong:

Let’s start with our attitude to the outside world. Here we were, supposedly trying to build these great online games, but we were stunningly inept at outside interaction. There were some high-profile release window gaffes – like attempting to BAN THE INTERNET FROM REVIEWING APB for a whole week – and then telling the world that they just didn’t understand our game – but it’s what we didn’t say that was most harmful of all. We had this incredible secrecy around everything we did. I liked this approach for early development – no point boasting about stuff that’s not ready – but at some point, with an online product, you have to engage your users.

We had deeply ingrained approaches to development that derived from the boxed-product world. We had a deep fear of letting anyone find out anything about our game until the last possible minute. “Release early and iterate”, a proven success model for online software, was anathema to RTW. We would constantly find ways to avoid showing features off or talking openly about the product. Press interest was built by incredibly elaborately-constructed demos, choreographed with clockwork precision. Our team of QA ninjas trained night and day so as to be able to act out the same scripted combat scenario on demand (they were actually pretty impressive to watch doing this!). At first, the press would just watch these sessions as examples of “live” gameplay. Later, they’d be allowed to join in, but would be so outnumbered by our staff that they would be forced to stay on the rails of our script.

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/

 

[taviow]

Game might be saved by Epic.

 

[Shakermaker]

Dont know if this guy is legit but supposedly he worked on it and is now spilling the beans on internal development and what went wrong:



http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/

Check the post above yours.

 

[Ravioli]

oh lawds, i sure done goofed up.

 

[TwwIX]

Their user base is even worse. They're venting out their anger and bitching about refunds on the Steam forums because RTW took down theirs.
What a bunch of entitled little shits.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

My Little Gangster: The Dressup Game

 

[Wanted Bob]

Their user base is even worse. They're venting out their anger and bitching about refunds on the Steam forums because RTW took down theirs.
What a bunch of entitled little shits.

Yeah, it boggles the mind why anyone thinks Steam is at fault for this.

That said, after looking at the arguments there, some statement about the game being terminated shouldve been released a bit earlier.