AR :: November 2012 Update

[Guest SirJustin]

Well it just seems to most people care about APB, not so much about the others. To be fairly honest with APB people have something they can play and as consequence comment and suggest on and even experiment on. I mean the general discussion is right now exclusively about APB. With AR and reborn we have nothing other than what devs show and tell us. Kudos for one_winged_angel always putting so much effort in the blogs, but its just not the same as really being able to actually experiance the game. I could get the same with any commercial game, except most commercial games dont take 10 years to be released. Not that im blaming anyone here, i know you dudes try to make a proper release and all, but i just cant be exited for this and so cant many others. Personally i think its a huge mistake wating for years to do a proper release, APB didnt need it and it was quite a hit in its time despite a 1000 stupid imbalances and issues. Besides, seeing as AR, reborn and APB share the same engine and devs, seeing how many stupid issues APB has and how development goes, i simply cant see how AR and reborn are supposed to be so much different from APB. Also APB still has very long ways to go to come somewhat close to RA and decently playable, atleast for the average gamer crowd. It just seems to me as if there is camp of players and devs. Its been years since i have seen most of the devs playing APB and with AR and reborn you have to be a tester or dev to be part of anything. I dont really see how this could be called community for anything than APB.

There's more to talk about in terms of APB because as you said, it is released. However, I always welcome questions on AR and am fairly transparent with my answers. We don't choose to take ages to release our games, we are limited on the time we can spend on developing the games due to work, school and other commitments; we do try our best. Although we are all Bluehell Productions, there is a three way split in our team. This way we don't end up making 3 clone copies of APB that play the same. AR is pretty different from APB in the sense that the buildings are a lot larger, the combat is a lot faster, the weakpoint system is much more complex than the MCT system, the veterancy system spices up the gameplay and tech buildings place more focus on engineers. There's a lot more reasons AR is different from APB, but I'll spare you the list for now. While it's true that the devs and players don't mingle too much outside of the forums, there are places such as the IRC channel and Teamspeak server where the community can interact with each other as a whole.

Applied last night, I have been waiting since the last rolecall, as I was just not around the home to apply that time around. Can't wait to see who and how many of us make it so we can all work together to build a greater and more sound development on all three fronts. To add, the conscript looks almost nonhuman, and he looks very much menacing, although this was probably the aim. (I find this from the triangular mouth piece and the eye slits) Otherwise even unfinished he looks great! The airfield model (air force command HQ) looks great. How easy will it be for enemies to rush in? In a sense of lift speed vs stairs, if they took one option while the defenders took the other, would there be much of a difference in time to reach the bottom? The new models for how the weapons are held are coming along, its great to be free of the limits of renegade. This will allow for dual wields? And also to be able to do more things with the weapons and have larger/different models as well I can imagine. As for the javelin, it looks quite nice. I was wondering what the launch speed of the missile was? Perhaps for reference law vs red eye are quite different all together.

Hopefully, the way we've designed the building will give a fairly equal time for both routes. The old rig allows for dual wielding, the problem is getting it to display correctly in third person. With enough research I suppose an extra pose could be created for it. The same goes for other weapons. The missile travels fairly quickly at the moment. It hasn't proven itself to be unbalanced just yet.

 

By a three way split does that mean that they have no contact whatsoever with the other two games, or is it just a general restricted direction? (ie focus on one, but if you have an idea try it out)

Edited December 9, 2012 by SirJustin

[OWA]

By a three way split does that mean that they have no contact whatsoever with the other two games, or is it just a general restricted direction? (ie focus on one, but if you have an idea try it out)

Each project has it's own staff forums and each team member tends to focus on the project that they are working on. Sometimes people cross over to give input, but the split teams tend to stick to their own projects.

[Guest C0de_man]

So, you think we should just release *anything* simply to have a release out there? Hope you like games with no infantry units.... seriously, the reason we haven't released it is because we don't have enough assets ingame TO release it. It would be like releasing an FPS with no guns...

 

 

As for not seeing how they would be different... I think all the current and previous testers would agree AR is very different to APB... it has veterancy, weakpoints and deployment for a start and those are only a few of the major differences.

Well, i mean considering you have a air tower and all the IFV configurations, i find it a bit hard to believe that you dont have most guns yet.

There's more to talk about in terms of APB because as you said, it is released. However, I always welcome questions on AR and am fairly transparent with my answers. We don't choose to take ages to release our games, we are limited on the time we can spend on developing the games due to work, school and other commitments; we do try our best. Although we are all Bluehell Productions, there is a three way split in our team. This way we don't end up making 3 clone copies of APB that play the same. AR is pretty different from APB in the sense that the buildings are a lot larger, the combat is a lot faster, the weakpoint system is much more complex than the MCT system, the veterancy system spices up the gameplay and tech buildings place more focus on engineers. There's a lot more reasons AR is different from APB, but I'll spare you the list for now.

The reason why i think that AR is somewhat similar to APB is mostly beacuse of the fact that APB is being plauged by 1000 of leftovers, mistakes and stupidities that stem from rengayed.

Besides weakpoints have been promised for APB ages ago.

It just seems to me highly strange that reborn and AR are supposed to be so cool while APB is left in the dust despite then sharing the same engine and not really mattering that the engine is pretty shitty but non the less many ways to improve the game are left unused.

While it's true that the devs and players don't mingle too much outside of the forums, there are places such as the IRC channel and Teamspeak server where the community can interact with each other as a whole.

I cant comment on teamspeak, but i think IRC is pretty much dead most of the time. Its just my observation that lot of dudes that play APB regularly dont come on the forums and the other way round.

I cant really say for others, thats just how i have seen for a while.

Also i doubt you can connect much to dudes that are occupied with game development when you arent part of it and i think that playing a game is supperior to "just hanging" or so.

 

Well anyway il apply as tester and with some luck get to see how things really are myself.

[OWA]

Well, i mean considering you have a air tower and all the IFV configurations, i find it a bit hard to believe that you dont have most guns yet.

 

We have most of them them modelled, just not rigged and ingame.

 

The reason why i think that AR is somewhat similar to APB is mostly beacuse of the fact that APB is being plauged by 1000 of leftovers, mistakes and stupidities that stem from rengayed.

Besides weakpoints have been promised for APB ages ago.

It just seems to me highly strange that reborn and AR are supposed to be so cool while APB is left in the dust despite then sharing the same engine and not really mattering that the engine is pretty shitty but non the less many ways to improve the game are left unused.

 

AR is similar to APB in the sense that it's on the w3d engine and has AoW mode as the main game type, but most of the similarities end there. AR is a step away from APB because we didn't want to make a clone and have you guys go "AMG YOU MADE APB WITH AN RA2 SKIN".

 

The weakpoint mechanic is vastly different to what the APB dev team's ideas were at the time; only the name is the same. Their idea was to simply have a weakpoint that had the same function as an MCT, but was more believable (i.e. War Factory V2 Missiles). The AR mechanic is multi-layered. each building has two weakpoints, an easily destroyable one that disables the building and a harder-to-kill one that destroys the building. The weakpoints aren't linked to the building's main health, so the building must be destroyed with either an exterior assault or interior sabotage. There's a lot of difference to the system, even though "weakpoints have been promised for APB ages ago", saying is a lot different than actually doing.

 

APB is still a cool game. We never said it wasn't. I don't think APB is being left in anyone's dust right now seeing as neither AR or Reborn are actually released. The way that the APB guys take the game is their vision. We give input on ideas, but APB is predominantly made by the APB team you see in the credits for the game.

 

As for these "many ways to improve the game" you speak of. We're definitely open your questions, comments and suggestions for AR in the General Discussion forum, but pretty much all of the threads there are APB related; so there's not really much for the AR guys to take from it really.

 

I cant comment on teamspeak, but i think IRC is pretty much dead most of the time. Its just my observation that lot of dudes that play APB regularly dont come on the forums and the other way round.

I cant really say for others, thats just how i have seen for a while.

Also i doubt you can connect much to dudes that are occupied with game development when you arent part of it and i think that playing a game is supperior to "just hanging" or so.

 

Well anyway il apply as tester and with some luck get to see how things really are myself.

 

Teamspeak is usually fairly active. We are working on making the IRC channel more accessible again by looking into an IPB plugin that will enable users to join and chat while they are visiting the forums.

 

I like to think that some of us stay fairly active in the forums, the fact that we haven't been playing recently just means that we've been busy with other things.

 

Personally, the player count in APB at the moment doesn't really encourage me to play that much.

[Guest BigOz]

AR needs moar bacon.. that's my suggestion...

 

And in order not to get my post flagged as spam.. have the testers been picked?

[OWA]

AR needs moar bacon.. that's my suggestion...

 

And in order not to get my post flagged as spam.. have the testers been picked?

 

We usually allow a few weeks for everyone to get their applications in. We'll meet up one of these next nights and go over them.