By Jim Rossignol on March 19th, 2010 at 3:51 pm.
Realtime Worlds send word that “Massive” online shooter APB is taking another round of beta test signups to expand the testing. You can sign up here. It’s still a closed beta with limited places, so there’s no guarantee of getting it, but it’s got to be worth a shot.
“We’re looking forward to welcoming thousands of new players to San Paro in the coming weeks.” said Dave Jones, Creative Director at Realtime Worlds, “As APB enters this final stage of closed beta testing, we’re anticipating a huge surge of interest with gamers from all over the world applying to take part and provide invaluable feedback to the development team preparing us for launch.”
19/03/2010 at 16:20 Freudian Trip says:
Everything was going smoothly until I tried to submit my application. Seems the site is suffering.
19/03/2010 at 16:24 Andy says:
I definitely recommend giving this one a try if you can get in. I’ve been in the beta program for a while now and am really enjoying APB.
19/03/2010 at 16:27 Laikapants says:
If I can manage to pry loose from Minecraft’s firm grip, I need to poke around San Paro again. Monday was a huge huge lagfest that caused me to crash 10 times or so. Then on Tuesday Minecraft I was firmly attached to Minecraft. All in all though, APB is generally fun and on the verge of awesome fun but I’m not sure if it’ll get there prior to launch. It does hurt APB’s case a little since I’ve spent the past month or so playing Saints Row 2.
19/03/2010 at 16:33 SAeN says:
Wouldn’t mind getting in on this. I live right behind Realtimes studio!
19/03/2010 at 16:34 evilentity says:
Final stages eh. I hope it involves more playtime then 2h/ week.
19/03/2010 at 16:41 Laikapants says:
The current Playtime (for North America anyway) has another week or so of continuous play left.
19/03/2010 at 16:48 evilentity says:
I see. Europe beta sucks.
19/03/2010 at 17:08 Jockie says:
I’d honestly be quite careful about leaking any details of the beta onto a public site, as you run the risk of your play-time being reduced to zero.
19/03/2010 at 17:35 Laikapants says:
@EvilEntity: :( Hopefully that gets better as it gets closer to launch.
@Jockie: Duly noted. Though in all honesty I’m not sure how revealing the current play schedule for NA and that the game sometimes bugs out would potentially violate my rather obscure Privacy agreement. However if it does, C’est la vie, more Minecraft for me!
19/03/2010 at 16:53 HolyShitMatt says:
Their site wouldn’t take my form in FF but Chrome was just fine.
19/03/2010 at 16:57 BigJonno says:
I’m sure that I’d already signed up for this, but apparently not. Fingers crossed, as I’m really interested in seeing what the game is like. Virtual worlds fascinate me and this one seems like it’ll be very different.
19/03/2010 at 17:21 Dan says:
I got on the current beta, but I never seem to be in during the playtimes.
19/03/2010 at 18:10 Marcin says:
That seems like a very nosy beta form – ethnicity, marital status, number of kids just to get in a beta? Pretty sure that’s a first. Is that the real site? Looks a bit … slapped together.
19/03/2010 at 20:09 MWoody says:
Agreed. I was considering getting in, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to hand them data that’s ONLY useful if they intend to quietly sell it to a marketing company. Hell, they don’t even have a legitimate reason to want to know my physical address.
19/03/2010 at 22:34 evilentity says:
Its not like they can check what you write.
19/03/2010 at 18:18 alm says:
I got in on the beta, and the installer said it’s not compatible with vista :(
21/03/2010 at 22:59 mpk says:
Um. I’ve been playing on Vista just fine.
19/03/2010 at 18:27 Marty Dodge says:
Their site is really crap I have found. It never manages to send password reminders when you password doesn’t seem to work for some odd reason. I hope the game is better than their piss-poor data-base.
19/03/2010 at 18:43 Skyturnedred says:
People who are married and/or have kids can’t possibly have enough time to participate in a beta :)
19/03/2010 at 19:27 SpinalJack says:
That’s an awful lot of personal information they want for a beta of a game…
19/03/2010 at 19:41 raskolnik says:
Apparently being 27 means I “don’t meet the requirements” for viewing the site. Fail.
19/03/2010 at 20:10 MWoody says:
So it’s an MMO for the 30+ crowd? That’s the first good thing I’ve heard about APB since the beta started! :P
19/03/2010 at 20:16 The Dark One says:
You know what, I remember filling out a form like this, but I could have sworn it was for Brink. Did I heap praise at the idea of the wrong game in the “*Why do you want to be a beta tester for APB?” section?
19/03/2010 at 20:58 Choca says:
Spoiler : this game is pretty bad.
19/03/2010 at 22:23 Hillbilly Savant says:
I can’t see why they need my marital status, income level and degree information. I want to beta test it, but there’s no way I’m volunteering that much info. It just makes me the slightest bit uneasy, the depth of demographic querying..
20/03/2010 at 00:56 JuJuCam says:
The issues with the personal questions came up last time, and while I don’t defend their decision to ask those questions I can tell you that they are what you would expect from a market research company trying to filter through demographics to find an appropriate cross-section of society. In terms of a beta, having a diverse selection of testers means a diverse selection of view-points for input regarding balance and features etc.
Unless it says somewhere that this info won’t be used for selection, but I really don’t know why else they’d ask.
20/03/2010 at 03:31 Jockie says:
I personally don’t have an issue with a company using the beta app for market research. It kind of makes sense to find out who the primary groups interested in your game are to me. Beta is usually reagarded as either a demo, or as an actual technical test, but for developers, trying to obtain as much pertinent data as possible seems rather sensible.
20/03/2010 at 01:18 Toyoch says:
Signed up, checked my 2nd account inbox and found that I got accepted for the beta 2 weeks ago..nice timing
20/03/2010 at 10:34 Jakkar says:
Curse their oily hides! D: I get beta access, find I’m part of a wave of stresstesting mindless goons given extremely limited time, and within two weeks they order another shipload of mindless goons! I wonder if I’ll get a promotion ;-;
21/03/2010 at 23:01 mpk says:
Obviously don’t want to say too much in case their omgspyz are watching, but after playing through my first 2 hour session tonight I am intrigued. Needs more than two hours at a time though.
03/04/2010 at 21:32 dig says:
When I enter my password in the account creation, it says that it do not meet the password requirements. But, I’m sure that everything is right. I’ve tried many passwords but this message continues “Your password doesn’t meet the requirements on the right.”. Somebody help plz