Post by punch on Sept 2, 2010 2:40:08 GMT -5
Remember a couple months back the big news about the MMO Shooter by Real Time Worlds APB? How awesome it was going to be with all of it's customization and open ended gameplay? Well, if you don't buy into the game then, be glad you did. Because to say it's a smoldering bag of feces being drug down the street and leaking slowly is an understatement. And there's a few reasons why.
Reason 1 - Hackers
Let's face it, there's no such thing as an unhackable PC game. APB is made using Unreal Engine 3, which notoriously hackable. As such, the game has been bugged with so many 3rd party hacks that it's almost unplayable. When looking at the leaderboards, you'll see some of the most ridiculous stats you've ever seen. Guys with K/D ratios of 20:1 with 96% accuracy. It is humanly impossible to be that efficient without some form of shortcut running. And there are tons of them. From programs that auto-aim, to unlimited ammo hacks, even a hack that kills with one shot. Any way you can think of the game being broken, someone broke it with a hack. So bad and rampant was it that the APB community, which pre-launch was teaming with excitement and looked like it was going to boom in numbers, jumped ship as if a pack rabid monkeys infected with the G-Virus were on board. Add to that the piss poor job RTW did policing the cheaters (and continue to do a piss poor job...present tense) that people have ditched the game in droves. And that leads us to reason two.
Reason 2 - "Administration"
No less then 6 weeks after the game was released, RTW went into administration. Now for you UK folks, you know what that is already. But for you yanks, that's the UK equivalent of CHAPTER 11. Yes, they are BROKE. And APB is a pretty major reason why. So rapid was the decent of users in the game as result of the disgusting and rather blatant amount of cheating going on, that the developers lost millions of potential revenue. Subscribers started canceling, the APB market place went bone dry, and that's led RTW to laying off a number of employees and now, putting the house up for sale. Now, they say APB won't be affected by this, but let's be real. The game doesn't look like it will survive past X-Mas 2010.
Kinda sad when you think about it. The game had hella potential. On paper it looked like it could challenge the big boys (WoW, CoH, etc). But thanks in part to shitty management and no life having cheaters, APB looks like it's about to take a bullet the back of the head and get dumped in the river. This is why 3rd person shooter/action games belong on consoles. At least there 3rd party hacks can never be developed for it. Granted, people would find ways to cheat anyway, but not half as bad enough to essentially break the game completely.
Reason 1 - Hackers
Let's face it, there's no such thing as an unhackable PC game. APB is made using Unreal Engine 3, which notoriously hackable. As such, the game has been bugged with so many 3rd party hacks that it's almost unplayable. When looking at the leaderboards, you'll see some of the most ridiculous stats you've ever seen. Guys with K/D ratios of 20:1 with 96% accuracy. It is humanly impossible to be that efficient without some form of shortcut running. And there are tons of them. From programs that auto-aim, to unlimited ammo hacks, even a hack that kills with one shot. Any way you can think of the game being broken, someone broke it with a hack. So bad and rampant was it that the APB community, which pre-launch was teaming with excitement and looked like it was going to boom in numbers, jumped ship as if a pack rabid monkeys infected with the G-Virus were on board. Add to that the piss poor job RTW did policing the cheaters (and continue to do a piss poor job...present tense) that people have ditched the game in droves. And that leads us to reason two.
Reason 2 - "Administration"
No less then 6 weeks after the game was released, RTW went into administration. Now for you UK folks, you know what that is already. But for you yanks, that's the UK equivalent of CHAPTER 11. Yes, they are BROKE. And APB is a pretty major reason why. So rapid was the decent of users in the game as result of the disgusting and rather blatant amount of cheating going on, that the developers lost millions of potential revenue. Subscribers started canceling, the APB market place went bone dry, and that's led RTW to laying off a number of employees and now, putting the house up for sale. Now, they say APB won't be affected by this, but let's be real. The game doesn't look like it will survive past X-Mas 2010.
Kinda sad when you think about it. The game had hella potential. On paper it looked like it could challenge the big boys (WoW, CoH, etc). But thanks in part to shitty management and no life having cheaters, APB looks like it's about to take a bullet the back of the head and get dumped in the river. This is why 3rd person shooter/action games belong on consoles. At least there 3rd party hacks can never be developed for it. Granted, people would find ways to cheat anyway, but not half as bad enough to essentially break the game completely.
