Remember sometime last September, when I wrote about the mercy killing of All Points Bulletin? You know, where I complained about not being able to run the game in beta, bought it anyway, then was surprised when it still didn’t run well enough? Oh, I suppose there were a few other points I made, mostly about how RTW failed to step up to the plate when they needed to and, well, more mostly, how much potential the game had. Well, in case you haven’t been following anything APB-related, it was salvaged by GamersFirst and is currently in the Open Beta stages under the guise of APB: Reloaded, but it might as well be released as everything will be kept from beta into release. So, how does this reanimated corpse of a MMO hold up today, compared to my last thoughts on it? Not as well as I was expecting.

First off, I want to get the one, major, great thing that happened. I still have the same machine from all those months ago (which maybe a sign I need an upgrade, but I digress.) and the game runs pretty well! My FPS ranged from 20-35, and it’s never terribly stable, but it usually stays near the top of that, even in fire fights, only dropping down low when I blow up every car of the street at once. The performance seems to have increased dramatically overall and this is a great thing as I can actually play it, on the lowest resolution with no graphical effects turned on, but I can still play it none the less!

Second, more guns. This is a double-edge sword in my opinion because adding more guns, while giving more options, can make balance an issue, but it seems to be working out pretty well. Besides, more guns is more fun! But, it doesn’t matter too much because of the biggest problem in the game that will probably never see a fix. I am, of course, talking about match-making.

Match making in APB has always been…difficult. When RTW was running the show, it would match up players so that there was a balance, of sorts, based on player’s ratings and threat level. A Player’s rating is like their level. The higher their rating, the more stuff they’re sure to have unlocked and the more they have available. Threat Level is similar, but is based on how well you perform missions and against opposition. Usually, the better you are, the higher your TL is, but if you start to lose, it can drop. This usually made matches fun and challenging, with the few unbalanced missions popping up every once in a while. The problem, however, was because of the player limit in instances, it was rare to get a mission opposed. Now, with G1 (GamersFirst) in charge, player rating is out the window and match-making bases match-ups entirely on threat level, oh, but you’ll get opposed more often. Which only means you get more unbalanced matches quicker.

It could be argued that the more skillful player will win, regardless of weapon load-outs. And while this is mostly true, the better gun with better mods will usually win out, but not always. Which brings me to the cash shop and the absolute crap that is sold there. I would almost say it’s pay-to-win, but that just may be me being a little sad because I’m too cheap to buy a scoped N-tec with Hunting Sight III on it. Don’t know what I’m talking about? It’s like an automatic sniper rifle. Regardless, the guns sold on the ARMAS Marketplace (the cash shop) are over the top and don’t have any level restrictions which is very silly. Yes, yes. A super-player will win out with the starting Star rifle against a newb with a OCA Whisper, but when the lines between player’s skill becomes crossed and blurred, the one with the better gun will win out.

Finally, the mission types that you get opposition on, more specifically, VIP missions where one team has a VIP they must protect while killing the other team as the other team try to kill the VIP so many times. Also, the missions where criminals have so many lives and need to keep those lives for a certain amount of time, you know, where they can just hop in a car and run away for the entire time. Those missions need to die. They need to up and leave and never look back. Not reworked, but just gone. Forever. Well, maybe VIP missions could go with a reworking but the run-away missions need to go. My main is a criminal and these final stages where my team simply has to run for the duration is unfair, boring, and a huge waste of time. 90% of the time, when I get this stage, I’ll end up setting up shop on a roof and kill any and all who try to come after. It’s more fun that way. (the 10% is for when I do run on account of not wanting to die a horrible death at the hands of some guy or gal with a rocket launcher).

And yet I’ll still play it. Mainly due to the group of people I’m playing with are awesome and just as terrible as me at the game. The customization is still as awesome, but G1 limited the number of layers and decals you can use, unless you’re ‘Premium’, which I’m alright with, surprisingly. I get my money’s worth from all the designs I come up with. Overall, I’m really still on the fence about how G1 is handling APB for the moment. I hope match-making and a number of other issues with the game get fixed, rather than the marketplace getting more over-powered weaponry. One thing is for certain though, APB is not going anywhere for a long time, if the number of ARMAS weapons running around San Paro is any indication. That suits me just fine. I’ll just blow up all their cars with my modded ALIG.

I like to call her Nikita. She is my very best friend.