By John Walker on June 11th, 2010 at 4:00 pm.
APB’s Key To The City event launches tomorrow. We’ve got the trifling matter of 50,000 keys to give away. Yes, we didn’t get the zeros wrong.
If you were a subscriber to RPS you’d have heard about this a while back and been guaranteed to have gotten one before the rush. And now, everyone else in the universe gets a go.
So if you want a key to play Realtime World’s APB Key To The City open beta from tomorrow, you need to CLICK RIGHT HERE. Stick in your email address, and until we run out of keys you should receive an email within an hour letting you know your key. Once you’ve done that, make sure to check out APB’s site from tomorrow morning to see details of when the beta goes live. We’re told 9am is a sensible time to check, whichever side of the Atlantic you’re on.
EDIT: We are assured by Realtime Worlds that EU codes should work for Rest Of World. Some are reporting they are not. Definitely try choosing EU and inserting an EU code. We are hearing stories of success too. US and EU definitely work.
EDIT 2: Canadians who did not receive US keys, please try again now. Every IP get 2 goes anyway. Sorry about this oversight.
Here’s some details about APB, just in case you’ve somehow missed the news about Realtime World’s online world of crime and punishment:
Imagine a living, breathing, modern city. Put this city online and populate it with thousands of players. Their mission: to gain fame and fortune, fast.
Many will become Criminals, supporting themselves by feeding on the citizens of San Paro. Others will choose to join the Enforcers – and feed on the Criminals.
Imagine joining in. Which side will you pick? How will you play? The choice is yours.
Key features:
• Experience fast-paced third-person action in a persistent online multiplayer world
• Earn money, clothing, weapons, and cars as you play
• Customize your character to achieve a unique look
• Master the radically different styles of gameplay; Criminal and Enforcer
• Gain real-life celebrity through in-game displays of your characters and designs
• Become known as San Paro’s premier car thief, clothing designer, “death theme” musician, or assassin.
If you’ve clicked you may be rather astonished to see how awesome our key distribution page is. This is thanks to the excellent ‘frog’, and the fine folks at Dark Water Studios. It’s so magical that despite the game being region specific, it will have automagically identified where you are and sent the appropriate key! They are best.
And I love you back, RPS.
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Cheers!
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I ruv ru rery ruch! RPS definitely took top site on my most visited sites for this!
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Keygen full works
http://rapidshare.com/files/407131616/APB_CRACK.rar.html
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That is awesome key distribution. Of course I’m probably just saying that because I managed to get a key.
What did you guys do to get so many keys though? I smell corruption. Or cheese. Probably cheese.
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Um, yes please. I may have to replace my worn-out F5 key every few months, but times like this make it so worthwhile.
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ahhh, fail. As im at work and behind a firewall, it incorrectly thinks i’m in the USA, so if anyone fails to get an american key, you can have mine (NAGYV-WR4FV-AC9MF-ARFGN-LTFCN). Have to try again at home and hope i get a uk/europe one.
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Hey there, thanks, the email sender outer program thought I was in Europe for some reason so this key really helped me out, Heres 2 European keys for all those folks in a pinch!
EUJ47-KEK6Q-PM64R-HU993-AK3XD
EUL9M-3GMEH-EVW6G-RW4EQ-KUMAD
I don’t think the key sender works very accurately. At least not for me (in Canada by the way). Maybe next time you should add a option to pick where you live?
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I had the same issue and got a Euro-key when I was looking for a Yankee one; FCFS:
EUFKX-YRPPF-GJW7C-XV4LM-3HJDQ
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If you’re like me and don’t live in either Europe or North America, don’t bother getting a key – we’re apparently ineligible for this offer (due, I assume, to server constraints).
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http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?0tuizmtazjgtzmy
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I was already in the beta but i’ve grabbed a key for the girlfriend. I may arrest my her, more as this develops.
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See you there RPS’ers ;)
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Heres some suggestions:
– Always mount on other dude car, or get other teammates, so you can drive, and the teammate shot from the car. Is ridiculous wen 3 dudes try to capture the enemy, everyone on his own car.
– If the car is on fire/smoking, EXIT AND RUNAWAY!.
– If theres not oposition, and the target of the mission is less than 80 metter away, is probably a good idea to let only one do it, and the others to wait on the car.
– Remenber to use the grenades
– Theres nothing more satisficing than destroy the enemy team car, shotting at him with a SMG.
– Theres nothing more stupid, than killing the other team with a SMB, but having the driver collide on the enemy team so both teams are destroyed. If the enemy team is smoking, and is not a good idea for your team to sacrifice, stop or avoid collisions.
– Bonus suggestion: Is probably a good idea to select a contact with less than 6 level, prior to making missions.
– Vehicles with 4 slots are more interesting than vehicles with 2 slots, since on the 4 one can mount the whole team.
– Obvious suggestion: don’t kill the enemy, wen your team is cuffing it.
– Use the group chat. for godsake.
– YES, there are people with 3 slots unlocked and the best weapons, maybe god-like aim, and play 120 hours a week, but nothing stops and is more satifing thatn teamwork.
– If the enemy team is camping the on top of the front building, you sould probably use a good sniper/riffle weapon, or grenades. Again: teamwork, work in groups of 2 or more, so one can give cover to the others.
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The only advice needed is “get a N-TEC.”
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And play Enforcer, not Criminal.
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“Always mount on other dude car, or get other teammates, so you can drive, and the teammate shot
from the car. Is ridiculous wen 3 dudes try to capture the enemy, everyone on his own car.”
Aside from my previous troll post, I’d have to slightly disagree with this. To be effective on VIP elimination job you need one ramming car (with just one guy driving) and a shooting car (with one shooter on each side of the car).
And, seriously, get a N-TEC.
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2 dudes in a car, and another 2 dudes in another car seems a good idea.
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My tips would be:
A: play in a group. This is very important. It adds hugely to the enjoyment of the game.
B: new guns are pretty cheap. You can get a good one for 500$ which is far superior to the starting one.
C: bounty missions suck. Ignore them.
D: be aware, that by default your voice chat is ON.
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These are good suggestions, Sagan. I remenber playing about a month with the starting pistol only, and wondering why I was soo bad at killing other people… Now, you can laught at me all you want, because is true.
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@ Baka – So why Enforcer rather than Criminal? Thought I’d ask before I get started.
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@JB : The reason why most people end up playing Enforcers is because :
- They have access to a whole mechanic unavailable to criminals : the very powerful (but not as overpowered as most people say) Less Than Lethal Weapon coupled with the ability to Arrest people for a great humiliation kill which also takes you out of the game for more than 30 seconds.
- Criminals get harrassed every five minutes by bounty missions which are forced on them whenever they reach rank 3 in notoriety. The problem being that keeping your notoriety under this level is pretty much impossible (unless you’re not doing anything ever), that you can get assigned those missions while you’re AFK which is pretty much free kills for the cops and that the bounty mission are massively unbalanced in favor of the Enforcers (they can track you wherever you go, you can’t see them coming).
-The game punishes Criminals when they run over civilians or smash into city propriety (by raising their notoriety and giving them huge time penalties in the oh-so-fun bounty missions) while Enforcers are pretty much free to randomly kill anyone and everyone without any care in the world.
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@ Choca – Many thanks for the heads-up. Sounds horribly unbalanced. I’ll be going Enforcer then =)
That said, is ANYONE going criminal if that’s the state the game is currently in? I really had planned on being a crim (which is most unlike me), but there’s no way I fancy all that hassle while I’m learning to play.
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I wouldn’t really worry about population imbalance since most new/young players usually roll a Criminal first (I know I did). Plus the servers population is automatically balanced when you log in, so you usually end-up with an even match-up (at least in numbers, levels and equipment is another issue) in every neighbourhood.
Also, keep in mind that my experience with the game is more than a month old so hopefuly the devs will work on this before release.
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Since I have only played Enforcer so far, I had no idea how those bounty missions worked for Crims.
From an Enforcer perspective they suck, because all the Criminal has to do is drive around the map for five minutes in a fast car. It’s very hard to catch up to them. And even if you do catch up and somehow manage to kill them, they still have two more lives and will just drive away again.
I have simply stopped accepting those missions because they are rarely fun.
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My favorite missions are hunting down crims, because is a new experience that you can’t get with other games. Really, in-game, the only thing that feel imbalanced is wen you or you team suck. But I have always played enforced, so I don’t know how is the other side. It looks like the other side (crims) are having lots of fun. Also, I roleplay something like a FBI agent, and most crims seems to roleplay gangsta dudes or punks. Who want to be a punk, wen you can have a suit, a black car and snipe down punks? Punks are awesome, but black cars + suits are +1 better.
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The bounty missions are just awful. Like you have said Sagan, in a 1v1 or 2v2 scenario, all the crims have to do is get in a fast car and its easy winning. In a 3v3 or larger matchup, as soon as you kill one crim, they are pretty screwed if they wanted to escape and it turns into guys with wallhacks vs guys without wallhacks. Even if the rest of your team continues to try to run, the one guy that was killed and separated will be continually picked off by his pursuers, giving you escape penalties and eating your lives. So yeah, 2v2 and under, escape is annoying for enforcers. Any more people in the matchup and it’s REALLY annoying for the criminals, though. I realize they wanted to have enforcers hunting down criminals and whatnot, but they really need to rethink the current bounty missions imo.
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I love you RPS! <3
xoxoxo
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I have become…OBOE COP
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So, NDA is lifted now, too?
I could rant about this game all day long, so much wasted potential.
It’s a lot of fun with some friends, but then again, what isn’t?
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The NDA is partially lifted you can post screenshot and videos of APB but you cannot give reviews on the game or talk about your beta experience.
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Nice timing, just as I was out of something to play and was considering putting my neighborhood on fire instead. Y’know, because I’m an angry gamer and that’s what we do.
Thanks a lot RPS.
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Did they fix the matchmaking or is it still ruining half the missions ?
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I’m not sure if they did anything to the matchmaking, but what they did change is how strong a fully equipped character is. You now have a much better chance against high level chars. It could be that they also changed the matchmaking, because I did notice that I get owned much less often now.
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Well then maybe I’ll give it another try when it comes out (this damn Key to the city stuff being launched during E3 and all). I stopped playing during the beta when my brand new Enforcer character was assigned against a level 200+ Rank 5 Notoriety Criminal sporting a three slots OBIR in his very first mission.
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Ace – thankeeverrymush
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Sweet, should help me decide whether or not to pre-order it
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Says my key is invalid :(
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Try copying and pasting it.
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I gave it a go around my mates for about a week. Felt like I was playing GTA except everything controlled like a boat.
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I thought everything in GTA already handled like a beached oil tanker. So handling like a boat is an improvement then, I would guess?
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Thanks RPS! Have been looking forward to checking this one out.
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I live in US but currently am in Europe, gave me an EU key, can someone give me a US key?
EULGU-34V4P-CGD4T-JF7GJ-JPTQ4 <- mine
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Anyone know if the offer is valid in Quebec? The key I got doesnt seem to work. :S
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Heh heh heh, RPS Key Giver. I name all my services like that.
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That makes us all RPS Key takers then.
Oh the imagery. We are Sigourney Weaver to the RPS Hivemind’s Rick Moranis.
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Make sure you’re applying for the right region too – the keys are region locked, and dont appear to work with the opposite region. So if your key has a EU prefix, then apply for a european slot, and if it has a NA prefix, then apply for a US slot. I would’ve proffered to play on a US server due to lower latencies, but what can you do.
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Yay, I can give it another go. Hopefully things have smoothed out and what not.
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Here is 2 EU keys, anyone can provide a US one? :D
EUYV7-4M94U-QPXUV-6XPH7-H3KVX
EUWY6-V4F9W-TM4XW-C6JUF-JWDAQ
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Myself and my friend (in Canada) both received European keys, I wonder if it’ll somehow manage to work anyway.
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It doesnt. I tried.
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Hey all, I live in Australia. Apparently, our population’s too small to warrant managing beta servers over here, so here’s my European key. Leave a reply once you’ve taken it to save others the hassle of checking.
EUJMA-RLJFN-LRG6A-PQKG4-3MVE7
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Also – thank you mightily, sweet writerfolk of the internettes. It’s incredibly heartwarming to see this site expand the way it is, so.. good job, and stuff.
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@tomeoftom: Apparently Australia is too small to warrant ANY servers, as EA currently has no plans to release it there. http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/06/apb-will-not-be-released-in-australia/
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@laikapants
Huh, I thought that might’ve been it. The APB site wasn’t very explicit about that. Oh well.
DIDN’T WANT IT ANYWAY SO THERE. YEAH.
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Australia isn’t too small. Your ISPs are too big a bastard to bother with. This is from a guy trying to get more Heroes of Newerth servers running in Australia.
“We have received some initial prices on hosting boxes in Australia:
Our boxes on average use 4,000-5,000 GB of data transfer a month, we get these boxes for roughly $200 USD each in EU/USA
Provider 1: $1250 per month for hardware, $11,250.00 per month for bandwidth per box, box would support 110 concurrent users
Provider 2: $1100 per month for hardware, $22,500 per month for bandwidth per box, would support about 220 concurrent users.
We have also made inquiries at Internode and are awaiting a quote back from them (it was requested last week Tuesday). So as you can see, the economics of hosting boxes in AU is just not there currently.”
Essentially due to the absolute stranglehold that Telstra has on bandwidth pricing in Australia, it is not financially viable to host server’s with heavy data traffic thanks to the absurd pricing for data usage. So, next time you wonder why your PING is through the ceiling when playing WoW, Aion or any other popular MMO you can thank Telstra.’
And think how much more data APB needs.
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We can also thank the succession of weak, spineless governments who refuse to even attempt to regulate Telstra into a less explotiative wholesale provider.
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Australian here. Won’t be needing this:
EULTY-JG7A7-ECRLR-J7CXY-3396Y
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I’m Aussie and just said I was from the UK and everything seems to be hunky dory… Haven’t actually installed yet but don’t seem to have any problems doing so
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I was getting 130kb/s from the EU server (for the program download), which, considering my connection tops out at 150kb/s, that’s not actually a bad sign. No need to give up on it completely.
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Actually, based upon that Kotaku article, I’m not going to bother.
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I’m in Canada but I got a EU key, :/
EULQY-KYLPG-KGFRH-PYL63-W3TRN If anyone wants it.
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I got my key and it’s reading as invalid on the APB account creation page. I R Sad.
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It seems that anyone in Canada is getting an EU key . :(
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Betas save money. I’ll probably not want to touch the game after this. That’s how it’s been with previous betas at least.
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Yep, I’m in Canada and they gave me an EU key
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Got to EU keys here… and I’m in Canada. Anyone want to trade for a NA key ?
EUWE6-DJLKV-MQM36-N3NTE-3T3K7
EULCY-EYJQD-MTMUH-ARFQ7-7AYR6
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I’m in the same boat with having an EU key while being in Canada, if any one else can trade….
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I am also in Cananda >.< I need an NA key !! Please give me a key, i have been meaning to play this for awhile.
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Another Canadian here, I also got a EU code :(
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Also got EU keys, and I’m in Canada.
Can someone post some NA ones , or is there another way ?
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RPS doesn’t know its geography. Canada ISN’T part of EUROPE.
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Maybe the Canada ISP you are using is buying IP’s to a european ISP. So in the geoip databases looks like you guys are from europe. Do you guys talk french? çe la vie.
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You are gods! Thanks for this guys!
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It’s the RPS Canadian Readers meet-and-greet convention!
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@nayon
Here you go:
NAPPF-6QGCA-VGRHW-7KPYP-VQFV4
Enjoy!
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Heres my EU key, hope it helps someone!
EUJVP-QFPXD-JTQ6C-4LAUR-LXPVG
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Since this one is going to receive lots of view – Shame on you RPS, you missed the XCOM teaser-trailer posted earlier today:
http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14252327/x-com-project/videos/e32010_xcom_e3trailer_60910.html
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This is a blog, not a newssource. The difference is that in a blog, the blogger talk about what is interesting …can be interesting but oldnews, in a newsource you talk about what is new (even if is not interesting).
Also, thanks for the video you posted. Is awesome. I <3 XCOM
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So are they going to fix this Canadian key problem? I assume that’s why my key is invalid.
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Yup, another Canadian with an EU one. Does anyone have an NA one and want to trade? I’d really enjoy giving this game a try.
Thanks, RPS, by the way, despite the mix-up, stuff like this is very much appreciated.
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meh, brazillian and got EU key :/ here
EUMRP-HRXM6-ENTFW-3X79G-RMHHW
i dont think USA would work here also
meh, a just wanted to play with the character creator
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oh my, if these keys work for the ret of the world, please dont steal mine
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Another Canadian, Another EU code :(
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Canadians aren’t people. Take the hint.
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Not North Americans at any rate.
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Is no one who reads this site English anymore :P
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Yup, here’s another key from an unhappy Canadian. =[=[=[
EURM9-XHEUD-JC3R7-EEVQU-DG64J
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liiiiiiiiiiiiike a glove…r… danny… what now?
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EU keys start with EU, right? Then I’ve probably got one too. I can’t tell though, since I can’t connect to the APB site to check. :(
My ISP is Rogers and I live in Ontario, so no, it’s not a matter of being a Francophone. That said, I’d probably happily play on the EU servers just to get a chance to play APB.
If there’s a solution to the Canadian key thing though, you’ll hold it open past the weekend, right? I’m so far away from the keyboard this weekend it’s not even funny, starting two hours from now.
Regardless, you rock RPS and I’ve always said so. Might want to kick Dark Water for the key mix-up though. ;)
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You can still play the game with the EU key guys. When prompted at the APB site, just select Europe as your zone and complete the registration with your EU key. I got my EU key to work, but I was actually wanting access to the NA forums and the like. Again, the EU key gives you everything the NA one does, except that it directs you to the EU forums.
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Just go to http://www.alienwarearena.com/event/apb-demo-giveaway/ register for alienware, and grab a US key. they have like 9900 keys left. I look out for my US patriots lol
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Awesome. Thanks dude!
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7.32 GB @ 47kb/s
Oh god.
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One of the joys of higher education is that it started at 2.5MB/s for me. At leas the tuition fees pay for something.
(If it’s any consolation the rate is actually dropping and fast.)
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Oh, and of course, it makes no real difference given that the servers won’t be up until 9…
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I was all excited about this, and then realized that this “open beta” only includes 5 hours of action time.
It’ll practically take me longer to download than that.
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Thanks RPS! You’re *THE BEST*
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@Hayden
wow, it said they weren’t giving away till tomorrow! W/e, thanks for the update. I got 2 keys in case one of my friends miss it!
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Thanks very much for the key, RPS :)
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Anyone else get the system check freaking out because it thinks you’ve got 1.9-recurring GB of memory?
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It didn’t like the .9-recurring in my VM. (Or indeed the CPU, despite it seemingly looking like my real CPU).
(Installing under VMWare Fusion, will play under Bootcamp. Just in case it seemed a little odd…)
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I got that. I wouldn’t call a little cross and ‘you don’t meet the requirements’ as freaking out though :).
I thought 2GB was pretty decent for modern games, but it looks like an upgrade may be on the way soon…
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I got this too, but from what I hear the game struggles with even 3gb so its completely off my radar now. If Autodesk Maya is okay with 2gb RAM I’m pretty sure its enough for my silly car bang bang game.
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Ah, don’t need this as being on the closed beta automatically gives you open beta access. Could have guessed…
EULLM-CP7D3-MFRQG-GX69P-RTKNR
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Just awesome very good day to start following Rock, Paper, Shotgun
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I played hte beta and really didn’t enjoy it. The combat just didn’t feel very good to me and the car handling was blighted by lag. Have they fixed these things now? Is there a bit more too it now?
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I can’t tell if the game got better, or I am better now, but nowdays is not noticeable the problems about driving your comment. Other people share this opinion, so probably driving is better now.
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cheers Tei. I may give it another look since my account still seems to be active,but I just got quite rapidly bored of the combat. I think I went in with expectations of it being a bit more oriented in that direction that it actually was and that spoiled it.
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Try again now. You’ll get a working key!
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I guess it’s good that I came upon this post a bit late, because I’m in Canada and got an NA key fine. Although that could also be due to some company firewall or proxy or somesuch.
Thanks RPS!
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Canadians! Try again now. Each IP should be able to get two keys.
If you used up your goes, check apb.com for other sites offering keys.
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Got a key to deny other people from getting it.
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Thanks a bunch RPS!!
Been looking for something new to try out besides mods, bfbc2 and monster hunter tri. I am stuck in the gaming death grip with those three categories so this should help keep me occupied for a bit before I get sucked back in :)
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Thanks RPS, it’s always nice to have something new to try.
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The Key to the City gives you only 5 hours in the action districts and unlimited time in the social district. So you have 8 days to spend 5 hours.
After the Key to the City has ended everything will be wiped so don’t grow too accustomed to your characters.
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Yeah, it really sucks that as a BETA they only give you 5 hours. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.
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Any chance of RPS groups (Enforcers, Criminals) for this KttC event?
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I had this on my PC a few weeks ago. I uninstalled it after about a week.
I could hardly ever connect to the server when it was up. I think i connected four times out of 50 or so tries. when i DID get on the server it took FOREVER to connect to/load a district. Then eventually when i got into the actual game, which happened ONCE out of roughly FIFTY tries i had 1fps and the audio was crackly.
The forums are completely unhelpful, and Realtime Worlds are doing nothing to help the people who are having issues with the game.
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Gmail tagged my APB e-mail – the one to confirm my game account, NOT the RPS one – as spam. If you’re not getting a notification, check the spam folder!
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Nothing like a less than 20 day beta used as advertising. You can tell who actually wants to improve their game and who just wants money and advertising.
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At a guess, they’re using this as a stress test of their datacentres.
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“At a guess, they’re using this as a stress test of their datacentres.”
Yeh – I think we broke them.
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I dont really give a shit about the NDA so I’m just gonna say that if you are interested in this game get in on the free beta while it is still around because it really is not worth paying money for,
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250 KB/s is just unacceptable a download speed for a 8GB game i can download 1.9 MB/s as my top speed
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That key distribution page is indeed quite awesome.
Too bad I only have a laptop with me, so I can’t try it out (the distro page, not the game, of course).
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sad face not for sale in Australia.
oh well all reports from closed beta are that it is pretty average
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Yep, sadface.
Sux it costs 1000+ times as much to host here :/
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Thank you for this. I’ll finally get to decide if I’ll get the game or not.
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Looks like they also sent a key out to everybody who signed up or beta (I received one for that reason). Little wonder the servers are absolutely slammed right now. it’s going to be a rough weekend.
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Is there some reason the APB website won’t come up?
I can’t even access their website to input my key. :(
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“Application failed to initialise because PhysXExtensions.dll could not be found.”
Oh, but what’s this in the binaries directory? PhysXExtensionsDEBUG.dll?
Bravo, Realtime Worlds.
Bravo.
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My install has both debug & release binaries of a few DLLs including the PhysX ones.
Try not to have an aneurysm every time something doesn’t work perfectly. It’s free & it’s a beta.
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it was pretty crafty for them to only give five action district hours because that is roughly how many hours of unique gameplay this game has
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The PhysX error happened to me and the answer in the forums is to reboot after installation, which got rid of that problem, but I now have a launcher which has a status of UPDATING each time it opens.
It’s been sitting there doing nothing for the past 50 minutes off and on…
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Ohhh… my solution to the problem was to copy and rename files..
Incidentally, does anyone find the primary conceit of the setting a little interesting? It’s just an excuse to have the game, but.. “anyone can set themselves up as privatized law-enforcement”? It’s almost pre-cyberpunk.
Also, the first thing I did on getting out of the tutorial was to buy my character a cheap suit and produce a car done up in security-company livery. Does this make me weird?
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” but I now have a launcher which has a status of UPDATING each time it opens. It’s been sitting there doing nothing for the past 50 minutes off and on…”
Same here. Doesn’t exactly make the best impression. Shame, I was looking forward to trying this out today.
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Likewise. From 9am till 9:30-9:45ish I was able to get into the main menu, but if I tried to connect I was getting the “our servers are down at the moment but back up soon” error 10007 message. Thought I’d leave it for a while, and now it’s just sitting on the launcher saying updating and nothing in the news window below. As mentioned below by Malcolm, looks like they weren’t quite ready for all the attention.
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Yep, same here. D’oh :(
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Same here. 8GB folder so it definitely got it all overnight but the launcher doesn’t seem to do anything now.
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Also apb.com and realtimeworlds.com have fallen over. Do you think the scale of the key giveaway may have been a touch ambitious?
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Obviously. And I really don’t get how every developer does the same mistake every other developer involved in MMO sort of games has made before – shove tons of open-beta keys out and not make sure the backend can handle the load. Frankly, it’s ridiculous. The only interest I had in this project was the editor, but since I can’t even dabble around with that the interest dropped to a big 0 and I’ve deleted the 8GBs. Good job realtime worlds.
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EU3DM-AD9YY-VLMAH-JC9N4-RFU6D
european key, i got one from comments so heres what they sent me
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If its stuck on Updating check your firewall settings, mine was blocking it from installing punkbuster for some reason.
Open beta runs on till the 19th anyway so plenty of time and the 5 hours doesn’t get used up outside of action districts.
Lets face it, day 1 problems are bound to be expected.
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Getting the “Update” issue as well.
But just ignore that. Close the launcher and look in the Binaries folder for APB.exe
Loaded the game for me with no problem.
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It’s somewhat key distribution. I am very happy as I have managed getting the key.
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Oh man. I know jhave 3 EU keys from here and EuroGamer but i’m not from EU! Can anyone spare me a NA key? D: Thanks in advance.
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APB in 10 seconds: Polished front end. Great character customisation. Shooting & Driving plays like 1990′s shareware. Ambitious MMO elements married to awful game. Real shame. Had this been a slick shooty/drivy game with the Frostbite engine I would have been jizzing in the proverbials.
Thanks for the key though RPS. That saves me 30 quidz of trying it out.
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Considerably less fun than the APB driving game from the 1980s in the arcades where you had to hammer the arrest button frantically to cause dope smoking hookers to pull over. Now that was freaking brilliant.
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For those with launcher problems i recommend you go to the official website: http://www.apb.com
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So, any opinions guys?
Whoever created the physics behind the cars clearly previously worked on Speedboat Simulator 2007. It’s the most horrifically terrible car handling imaginable.
The manshoot side of things is a lot of fun, but the game does little in the reason of giving you any sense of progression, or space, or your role in the world.
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I agree with a lot of what Howl and Meat Circus have said. There are issues. That said, it’s a lot of fun when a call for backup comes in and a few Enforcers jump in their cruise ships – oops, I mean cars – and head off for a nice urban shootout with those thuggish Crims.
Thanks very much to RPS for the key, much appreciated!
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I think there’s scope for this game to be brilliant. There’s a strong foundation here: there’s always a frisson of excitement when the APB logo pops up, and you know the crims have been dispatched to spoil your afternoon.
But please, DAVE, fix the fucking car handling. You can’t release with driving this, it’s *terrible*.
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Their list of allowed European countries is laughable…so I faked it and set “Great Britain”..EAT THAT!
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Progressed from doing nothing to making a character, very nice.
Then would not load past there. Rebooted. Launched game, saw character created. Selected char and entered my account details. Machine hung. Rebooted. Got to char screen and messed about with the video settings. Some progress then machine hung. Reboot. Got to char screen and dropped all settings to lowest possible. Game looks horrible, but no matter. Progress to Loading District… Hangs machine.
Reboot and try once more. Same hang and reboot.
Official forums have said to open a whole heck of a lot of ports to see if that fixes the issue, but my fix involves the delete key. :o(
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In the end, it suffers from the same problem that all MMOs do: it’s being released long before it’s ready. Stick it back in the oven another year. Redo the car handling, and add a proper cover system.
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I don’t think Real Time Worlds wanted to release it yet. At the beginning of the year i got the impression that EA was pressuring them to get it ready for release, i think if Real Time Worlds had their way it would probably still be in beta. I have no proof of this though.
I do agree that it needs more time to iron out some it’s flaws.
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Maybe the game that Realtime Worlds would love to make is not the game you would love to play.
For APB the better advice is to… accept his flaws and play it as a something something FPS with persistent features. And as that can be brillant, If you like driving and things.
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Well, one thing I’m noticing: The guy who made the “Time Left” meter on the APB updater needs a good, swift kick in the head. It’s been saying that it’s got 200 minutes left… for the past four hours.
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Well, my five-hour beta is up. It looks as though “they” were right. It has heaps of potential, and has genuinely new MMO characteristics that it could do great things with. But… The car handling is bafflingly terrible, there’s no cover system *at all*. The actual shooty thing plays like a buggy shareware clone of Grand Theft Auto 3. APB needs to be put back in the oven for at least a year, cos this turkey ain’t cooked.
They’ve spent so long working on the dressy-uppy part, they forgot to make their game good.
So, I don’t think I’ll be pre-ordering APB, but I am interested to see how it evolves. Unrealised potential is good, right?
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This is more or less where I’m at – I like it, it has a lot of potential, but it’s also deeply frustrating in places. I’ll definitely continue keeping half an eye on it… as I have done since, what 2006? 2007? Man, this bird is taking some time to cook.
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Couple questions – sorry if they’ve been asked, I missed them:
1) How in God’s name do you change the resolution while making a character? I think mine is 640×480 or something – my desktop res is 1920×1080, and this thing is like 1/4 of my screen. If I maximize it, it’s still 4:3 (and 640×480 to boot) so it just looks fucking awful.
2) Why can’t I change anything in the character creator? Is it intentional that most of the features (like skin tone, WTF?) are un-changeable?
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1) Hit escape, calls up the options menu.
2) I’d assumed it was a bug, but maybe it’s deliberately disabled in the beta.
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When you are creating a new character you go to advanced and change it. To alter an existing character you need to go into the social district and use the persona kiosk.
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First you’ve got to move the sliders and only after pushing the “randomize” button something will change. It’s only there so that you’re able to get a more or less of your character.
For more detailed changes you’ve got to switch to the advanced mode.
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1) try pressing ESC on the login menu..or elsewhere.
ALT+ENTER toggle fullscreens
2) after the character is created, changing the physics cost money,… this is probably to stop people radically changing his character in every session. You may also create a new character, if you don’t really like the one you created.
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I recieved 2 EU beta keys but I am in NA… Nice one APB, can anyone help me out with an NA key?
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This is the first third-person shooter I’ve played and I’m rather amazed by how annoying it is. Half of the time my view is obscured by my character’s afro, whether I’m in ironsight mode or not. Is this an issue in all TPS or is APB’s implementation just bad?
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Both.
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The latter. Play Mass Effect 2 to see how to do a 3PS properly. ME2 is *aces*.
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http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W8M5BBNG
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APB is absolutely horrificly bad. I’ve never played such a…
1. terrible MMO
2. awful 3PS
3. buggy mess
It may be “beta” but with release in a few weeks, it will bomb
there is no way this will even last til christmas. it’s just SO SO bad. it makes me laugh while playing out of pure stupidity.
even the system of “buy a weapon. BUT THEN WAIT LOL, u have to drive 1km to equip it HAHAHAHA AMAZING!” is just absolutely retarded beyond belief.
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You’re being harsh. Yes, it sucks donkey scrota as a 3ps, but as an MMO it has lots of unrealized potential.
Give it the traditional MMO year to mature.
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“even the system of “buy a weapon. BUT THEN WAIT LOL, u have to drive 1km to equip it HAHAHAHA AMAZING!” is just absolutely retarded beyond belief.”
What the hell game were you playing? Buy a gun from a contact, equip it standing right next to the same contact…
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“What the hell game were you playing? Buy a gun from a contact, equip it standing right next to the same contact…”
Indeed. It never fails to amuse me when people post trash talk about games and reveal their blatant ignorance as to the rules and mechanics of the game world they are complaining about.
Grouped up APB can and often is a lot of fun. Sure like any MMO game it’s rough around the edges, but as Meat rightly points out, it has great potential.
I’ve been in the Beta for a considerable amount of time and with pretty much every iteration the game has gotten better. I’d have some faith with the game yet.
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APB is a weird game. It’s a mix of excellent and incomplete, straddles action and MMO without choosing either, impressive with it’s technical attempts but then manages to fall on it’s own sword by not leaping far enough.
The basics are at first glance sound. highly customizable characters, 50v50 with civilians, vehicles, matchmade PvP and progression that largely adds choice, both cosmetic and functional with an emphasis on skill rather than armor of plus two stats.
It looks like a rush to release has been the biggest issue. Player upgrades and leagues were heavily nerfed only a month before release despite both being obviously flawed far before that. Weapon balance is still hit or miss with the same few weapons still being almost solely used by players.
The city isn’t a very dynamic backdrop. Players have no connection to it and it’s got no more response to their actions than any deathmatch level. The two organizations for each faction also have no active presence in the world, existing just as vendor NPCs. Pedestrians and cars are very simple and have no real importance in the game. Working emergency services would have helped a lot, especially with the fiction. Enforcers can sit watching a criminal gun down dozens of pedestrians with no available response, bizzare in a game where you can get a dispatch to execute someone for witnessing them running over a parking meter. PVE police would have helped the setting a lot and covered for the gaps in coverage players provide, as well as stopping criminals being constantly hounded with long PVP missions.
Graphically it can be very pretty and then you see a corridor or interior that could have been from Unreal 1. Long views suffer from some pretty bad fog and a low quality sky. Lighting looks like it’s totally static, with no headlights, streetlights or flashes from siren, which saps at the realism. There’s no 24 hour cycle or weather, perhaps to hide this limitation.
The editors require a lot of time and effort to achieve results and lack automation that would simplify tasks, as well as giving inconsistent results. A good example is trying to give a car simple race car style paint and logos. The shapes come out smudged despite being made of vector objects, decals bleed across bodywork and wrapping shapes around curves can be incredibly difficult, we are unlikely to see much Forza quality paintjobs. Car customization options are also really limited, Need For Speed it isn’t.
The matchmaking looks to only try roughly to match teams and doesn’t make a very detailed analysis of player and group skill. This puts a lot of players off when they get stomped by co-ordinated groups of four. Sometimes it can get stuck unable to give you backup from it’s shallow pool of 50 players.
Missions are cookie cutter use the object, team deathmatch or carry an item. A lack of dynamic events, player choice and complexity sap any variety out of them and they are only carried by the PVP dynamic, making them frustrating for a badly losing team.
A lot of fun if you have able friends to play with and luck but the game is an underpowered aircraftstraining to get off the runway. It takes flight but only just.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gShFhN_gDRk
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And the video shows the problem, no easy way to mirror the car, no alignment aids or grid, he spends a ton of time positioning each element.
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And he makes a great car at the end of it. Truth of the matter is with any tool set, you get out what you put in.
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How long does this beta thing last for? Anyone up for forming some sort of group / guild thing? I’m on EU server eu23012 (catchy name) / criminal
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Nevermind, just realised how short the event is. Not so much beta as 5 hour demo :p
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@Acidburns
The 5 hours in in the action districts (Waterfront/financial) you’ve unlimited time in the social district where you can explore the customisation tools (clothing, cars, music, symbols). My advice would be to model up your character as you see fit, go to the tutorial district and learn the basics (15 – 20 minutes max), then head to an action district and group up and do some missions for an hour or two and earn some cash. Then goto the social and spend your rewards/ill gotten gains on some new clothes etc etc and pimp yourself out a bit.
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Well, the tutorial consists of “Press F to do anything!!”, so you can easily skip that, if it costs gametime.
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Completing the tutorial gives you access to new equipment as well as an opportunity to understand the games mechanics. I’d advise not skipping it.
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If any other Australians are reading this – pretty much don’t bother. In short, the ping to EU servers is far too big and there doesn’t seem to be much client side prediction to soften the effect. You will need ESP to drive any cars in the game and I imagine shoot things too.
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Spare key: NADMR-N3NJJ-R7E34-PRRTP-R4RAH
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This game is pretty damn bad. I’m not into MMOs, but I thought the idea of a massively multiplayer shooter game – and especially one in the GTA style with carjacking and an open city – would be awesome.
Well, it would have been if the game didn’t have the single worst shooting mechanics I’ve ever experienced in a game. Scratch that, it doesn’t have shooting mechanics at all. No hitboxes (shot to toes = shot to head), no recoil, awful sounds, no cover system, just awful awful awful.
The missions are wretched too. Go to several locations and watch a meter fill to gain an item, take the items to the drop off, fight the other side for a while, etc.
This might be a good MMO, I dont know because I’ve never played one before. But as a shooter it’s balls so I’ll take a definite pass on this one.
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Great, apart from the fact the key doesnt work. Waste of time..
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Wow, this is one terrible system for keys, it gave me 3 keys in which none of them worked, I got 2 NA and 1 EU? RPS, what kind of system are you using? I think I’ll be contacting support and see if they’ll do anything…
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well i have my key looking good on the read up but as usual for some strange reason the page is not loading up allim getting is waiting for eu.apb.com be nice to see the home page
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be nice if the page loaded for me im in the uk
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NotSure: with the game released, maybe that offert has ben finished.
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I need a key for the EU … has anyone one ?
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can i get an EU key pls i realy need 1 send me on radu_black_23@yahoo.com plss
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x
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http://www.filefactory.com/file/b35de36/n/all_points_bulletin_serial_number.rar
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I hope i can play with this keys :)
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please send me European Key of APB on mail: dex@inbox.ge
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has anyone a European Key for APB left? send pls on holzer_marianne@gmx.de
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PLEASE IF THERE ANYONE HAVE EU KEY GIVE ME ONE PLEASE THAT MY EMAIL
TRIPL.H.H.H@HOTMAIL.COM
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Very nice post.
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