Version 1.5 is Live!

Whew! So with the exception of some last minute visual issues (for example, the Crim starter car has an issue with its shader, making the car and its wheels have a bizzare glow, and a few other graphical issues) we decided to roll out version 1.5 in closed beta mode. We expect to release small patch updates nearly daily over the next few days to clean out the last few issues, in preparation for inviting A LOT of people next week.

It's a 4GB+ sized patch, so clearly will take some time to patch up. Once you do, our first release of 1.5 has the following items:

1.5.0 (72) External Release Notes

Locked and Preloaded!

Build 1.5.0.72 – early Closed Beta edition of “Open Beta RC-1”

Open World Crimes and Witnessing

Background:

Witnessing has RETURNED and it's bigger and badder than ever! Criminals earn notoriety and stash by committing crimes all around San Paro. Any crime – ram raids, stealing cars or mugging citizens –will earn Criminals notoriety and add to their stash. Criminals will want to get their notoriety as high as possible before dropping their stash off at the Money Launderer who'll give them an APB$ bonus based on their notoriety.

Enforcers however, need to be on the lookout for Criminals committing crimes. When an Enforcer sees a Criminal commit a crime they can "Witness" them (by pressing ALT) and start a mini-mission. When killed during this mini-mission Criminals will drop their stash which Enforcers can then grab. Whoever has the stash needs to make a run for their drop zone to get the cash! Get rich quick, or die tryin'!

Details:

·         Added new ‘Stash’ logic for criminals. All cash from open world crimes is now added to a stash of dirty money rather than directly to the player’s actual cash. Players are required to drop off the stash at a money launderer to receive the actual cash.

o   Added new Work in Progress (WIP) Heads-up Display (HUD) icons to show stash amount and current notoriety multiplier – the higher your notoriety, the higher the reward.

o   Dropping off the stash adds cash equal to the stash amount times your multiplier and then reduces your notoriety to zero.

o   Money gained from dropping off the stash is split between group members.

o   While playing in a group, all group members’ notoriety will return to zero when one member drops off a stash, so remember to return stashes as a group!

·         Added new ‘Witnessing’ Mechanic for Enforcers.  Enforcers can witness crimes performed by criminals with a stash over $100.  Witnessing this crime starts a 5 minute witness mission between the two player groups where they fight it out over the stash. First to drop-off the stash gets to keep it.

o   Added new HUD element for Enforcers on targeting a criminal to show stash amount if witnessing the criminal will result in an immediate match.

o   No HUD element means that you can’t be matched against that criminal due to other restrictions.

·         Increased rewards for completing a mugging and added a reward for ramraid.

·         Adjusted amount of items pedestrians will drop when mugged.

o   Poor: 0 items.

o   Middle Class: 2-3 items.

o   Affluent: 4-6 items.

·         Altered vehicle drop off rewards based on vehicle cost.

·         Altered item drop off rewards.

Spawning

Background:

Never fear spawning hundreds of meters away from your team again. We've made significant improvements to the spawning system so that you are more likely to spawn near your teammates. Also, you are more likely to spawn close to your target and with your other fallen teammates. Gone are the days of spawning right on top of an enemy!

Details:

·         New Spawning system implemented. This takes into account locations of teammates, enemies, objectives and dead players (both teammates and player) to determine the best location to spawn nearby.

o   Increased spawn time to offset this. Takes slightly longer now, but you spend far less time running back to the action.

·         Tripled number of potential spawn points in both districts to aid in better spawning.

Weapon and Vehicle Leasing

Background:

After serious consideration and review of closed beta participant behavior, we have added additional APB$ money sinks to the game and simultaneously reduced the initial in-game money cost for several items. All weapons and preset vehicles will now be leased for 10 days at a time before the items are repossessed by the thuggish people working the Repossession Squad. After the 10 days weapon or preset vehicle are unequipped and any modifiers that were in the item will be returned to you and can be reused later.

These changes let players try different weapons and preset vehicles without having to first earn millions of APB$. Players can try a weapon or preset vehicle for a short period of time for relatively little APB$ instead of only expensive permanent choices. This change will control in-game inflation and controlling inflation will make it easier and more fun for new players to come into game and participate in the in-game economy elements like the Auction House, and also allows us to create a new set of base prices for future weapons

Details:

·         Weapons and Preset Vehicles are now Leased with in-game cash (this change does not affect Equipment, Modifications and Customizable items). 

o   Leased items are not tradable.

o   Upgrades are automatically removed and returned to player when a weapon expires so they can be applied to another weapon.

·         Adjustments to most costs for weapons and vehicles.

·         Removed pickup time for items.

Modifiers

Details:

·         ‘Upgrades’ renamed to ‘Modifiers’.

·         Mods have been coloured to denote grouping. Characters can only have one mod of each colour type equipped at any time to prevent stacking.

·         Most upgrades now have detrimental effects as well as benefits.

·         Rebalanced all existing modifiers.

·         Reworded ‘Activate Nitro’ and ‘Activate Field Supplier’ keybinds.

Gameplay

Details:

·         Fixed the ‘look behind’ key exploit for burst fire weapons.

·         ‘Witness’ now set to Alt key.

o   This leaves Look Behind unbound by default (note: this isn't the fix to the fire bug :P)

·         Reduced impulse applied to ragdolls from being shot.

·         Very slightly reduced crouch speed to make it fit the animation better.

·         Slightly reduced the extra time players stay arrested.

·         Added neutral vehicle collision immunity.

o   If a player is rammed by someone not on their mission, no collision damage will be applied in most cases.

·         The camera now bobs when the player is moving, adding a bit more dynamism to the game.

Progression

Details:

·         Fixed the “Supercop” enforcer achievement unlocking after an arrest streak of 1, now unlocks after an arrest streak of 5.

·         Adjusted the number of levels per contact.

o   Tutorial contacts have 5 levels, Boss contacts 15 levels, and all other contacts have 10 levels.

o   The Standing required per contact has not been increased; players now just hit milestones more often.

·         Rewards spread out more throughout contact tree.

·         High-End vehicles now unlock earlier.

·         Enabled ‘Simon Tran’ and ‘Pagan Bloodrose’ again.  These contacts don’t have any progression or missions, but we’ll be adding experimental new mission types to them in future.

·         Added cash reward for levelling contacts.

·         Items unlocked by contacts are now shown on the contact pledge screen, in order of level unlocked.

·         Locked items are now shown under the buy menu of all contacts, rather than just the contact that unlocks it.

·         Players are now able to pledge to and progress any unlocked contact individually, regardless of the group leader’s pledge.

Weapons Balancing

Details:

·         Re-enabled UI stats for weapon properties (they were previously disabled for balance testing).

·         Colby CSG-20:  Now is more accurate with a tighter spread than the JG (though less damaging)

·         ACT44: Damage lowered

·         Colby RSA: Increased recoil, slightly lowered firing rate and slowed the accuracy gain slightly.

·         OBEYA CR762: Damage lowered, now loses accuracy if fired at full cyclic rate.

·         DMR-SD: Recoil Lowered, Movement accuracy in MMS increased. Fire rate slightly increased.

·         OPGL: Fire rate substantially decreased, slightly increased fuse timer. Slightly reduced kill radius.

·         SHAW: Increased Damage, increased minimum accuracy, increased horizontal recoil.

·         N-FA9 : Increased Damage, slightly increased accuracy

·         SAS-PDW: Significantly increased accuracy.

·         OCA-626: Increased recoil.

·         PMG-28: Increased recoil.

Vehicles

Details:

·         Re-enabled vehicle stats in the UI.

·         Task items in vehicles now slow down the vehicle.

o   Slowdown is based on task item type and number of items.

·         VIPs now slow down vehicles.

·         Vehicle spawn cost now varies based on vehicle (starter vehicle is free).

Character Slots

Details:

·         Players are now able to create one character initially for free in a free account. As an extra bonus, during Beta phase, everyone will be able to create a SECOND free character for as long as the game is in Beta.

·         More character slots can be purchased from the Armas Marketplace, and a player could in theory have a very large number of characters in each account spread across the different servers. The benefit to the player is that if the player buys a "Premium" to upgrade the account, it applies to ALL characters in that account as long as the Premium is active, regardless of how many characters the account contains.

Environments

Details:

·         Complete overhaul of all post-process and lighting values.

o   Modified values to iris response.

o   Balanced every district material containing emissive values, to help mitigate some of the over-blooming that was happening.

§  Vehicle emissive maps toned down in order to prevent detail corruption.

§  Signage balanced so that it is much more legible.

§  Skyscraper windows balanced so the colour variation comes though.

o   Depth of field greatly modified in order to:

§  Set back the plainer, LOD2 geometry.

§  Help soften the harsh edge of buildings in general.

§  Give a better sense of depth to the environment.

o   Improved day/night cycle, including a 1 in 5 chance of heavy fog cycle:

§  16:00 culminates in heavy sea fog and overcast sky.

§  03:00 – 05:00 has heavy night fog with darker shadows and brighter pools of light, to give the occasional horror/film noir vibe.

o   Re-lit many areas where bounce lights were set too brightly.

·         Ever get bored of grey? We were bored to tears by it. Some of the worst offending spawn zones have had an initial material pass to add a bit of colour and variety to San Paro.

·         Many spawn zones adjusted in order to ‘plant’ the relevant contact characters more effectively.

o   Lilith and Jeung can now be found hanging out together at the Beltane with Bloodrose-themed feature graffiti.

o   Tyron Sennet shifts his focus to matters of planning… A better context and a better view of his jacket customisation.

o   Bonita Benjamin no longer stands in a dark corner, but is brought out to her own table outside the Golden Mall.

o   Shift given more boyish pose, and now leans next to some of her own graffiti.

o   Double B given a more prominent position in the subway.

o   Mirri Kent now has something to look at.

o   Stu Phoenix spawn zone given some Prentiss theming.

·         Some of the contacts given a visual update to bring them in line with some of our more recent/incoming character assets. Notable changes:

o   Miguel Esteban – Urban gumshoe and brawler.

o   Shift – Riot version as seen in intro cinematic.

o   Violet Prentiss – Gets a hot cowgirl style to compliment the accent.

o   Kaspar Danko – Grizzled army vet and overall badass.

·         South West side of the Waterfront District now has ‘Ophelia Customs’ blimp to aid navigation around that area of the city.

·         Lots of bug fixes applied to props and features. Some examples:

o   ‘FU’ two-pane shop window corruption fixed.

o   Glass modified so that restaurant interiors are now fully visible.

o   Some of the shop windows given a facelift.

o   Organic food no longer available at petrol stations.

·         Social District given a bit of a visual revamp:

o   Vehicle display zones improved.

o   New banners and blimp.

§  Introduction of incoming contact, Ophelia.

o   Shop interiors made more colourful and varied.

·         Added ramps to north end of Financial District freeway to tie up routes more effectively.

·         Fixed several locations where players could exit the world or get within geometry.

·         Added some cover to a roof in waterfront that leads to a nasty camping location. Still work to do here but this should help in the meantime.

·         Added a large number of new vehicle spawn machines to both maps.

o   Additionally, all vehicle spawn machines that aren’t in factional spawn areas are no longer faction-locked.

·         Fixed a non-functioning graffiti target in Waterfront.

·         Removed a possible Truck mission target that was in an area that a truck cannot get out of.

Tutorials

Details:

·         Reduced number of missions from 5 to 3.

·         Updated initial tutorial mail.

·         Added ‘Ready’ mechanic to tutorial, with an explanation of how it works.

·         Removed majority of on-screen popup tutorials.

·         Removed ‘Welcome to San Paro’ achievement.

·         Added following tutorial mails sent to players:

o   Explanation of how contact progression works.

o   How to equip and use modifications.

o   Importance of Teamplay and group composition.

o   Open World Crimes and Arresting…

UI

Details:

·         Players can no longer send each other APB$ in the mail.

·         Removed the world recommendation when creating new characters. Server names will include their location so players can choose the one they want.

·         Minimum client screen resolution is now 1024x768, in order to increase the size of some UI screens which were getting cluttered.

·         Cyrillic and accented characters are now disallowed for character names. Some players were unable to interact with each other due to localised keyboards and OS settings. Russian players will be moved to Russian servers once those go live.

·         Updated the in-game browser version to Gecko 1.9.2.13 / Firefox 3.6.13.

·         Fixed the in-game video recorder saving video at the wrong aspect ratio on ATI machines.

·         Updated the in-game video capture code to use the latest LibTheora, LibVorbis and LlibOgg libraries.

o   The new version of the encoder should improve performance and video quality, and includes SSE2 optimisations.

·         Cleaned up the character select UI

o   Increased the font size of the email address.

o   The account type is now displayed on the same line as the account type header.

o   Decreased the size of the header panel and slightly increased the separation between the header and character list.

Story

Details:

·         Hooked up contact levelling emails.

·         Lengthened contact and organisation biographies significantly.

·         Added 88 Biography emails as random rewards detailing companies, manufacturers, celebrities and the city itself.

Miscellaneous

Details:

·         New Developer splash screen intros added.

·         Updated and reintegrated the intro cinematic.

·         Fixed audio display points in the Social District having the wrong ‘Obtained By’ text.

·         Hooked up URLs across the game to bring up the relevant pages using the in-game browser.

·         Adjusted customisation limits for free players.

o   Clothing/Tattoos are now 3 symbols per item.

o   Vehicles are 7 symbols.

Client Size, Performance and Stability

Details:

·         Fixed top stability issues:

o   Client crash due to rendering issue (seemed to happen to players on death mostly).

o   Client crash caused by changing the colour of unselected duplicated layers in the symbol designer.

o   Client crash that happened sometimes when you accessed your inventory.

·         Added DXT texture compression, which reduces in-game memory usage and significantly improves the texture/graphical quality for players on a 32-bit OS.

·         Updated WWise libraries, increasing game performance (more so on lower-end machines)

·         Recompressed the game audio with no noticeable drop in quality. This substantially reduces the total client size on disk (now ~4GB).

Known Issues

Details:

·         Starter Vehicles

·         There is a known issue with some shaders for the starter vehicles, in particular for the Crim starter vehicles which will make the tires and sometimes the whole car look insane. Will be addressed in an early patch.

·         Localisation/Translation

o   Much of the new and edited in game text has still to be translated and entered into the game. Playing APB in languages other than English may result in English text being shown anyway in some places.

Full Default Control Listing

Movement

Function	Primary Binding	Secondary Binding
Forward	W
Backward	S
Left	A
Right	D
Jump	Spacebar
Crouch	Left Control	C
Sprint	Shift
Walk

Combat

Function	Primary Binding	Secondary Binding
Fire Weapon	Left Mouse
Reload	R
Marksmanship Mode (Hold)	Right Mouse
Marksmanship Mode (Toggle)
Lean Left (in Marksmanship Mode)	Q
Lean Right (in Marksmanship Mode)	E
Grenade	G	Middle Mouse
Next Weapon	1	Mouse Wheel Down
Previous Weapon	2	Mouse Wheel Up
Activate/Deactivate Character Mod	5
Put Away Weapon	`
Witness	Alt

Driving

Function	Primary Binding	Secondary Binding
Forward	W
Backward	S
Turn Left	A
Turn Right	D
Handbrake	Spacebar
Horn	Left Mouse
Activate/Deactivate Vehicle Mod	5
Vehicle Special Function	Right Mouse
Left Turn Signal	Q
Right Turn Signal	E

Actions

Function	Primary Binding	Secondary Binding
Action	F
Ammo Resupply	T
Drop Item	X
Player Interaction Menu	.
Ready For Mission	K
Toggle Movie Capturing	;
Voice – Push To Talk	Z

Driving

Function	Primary Binding	Secondary Binding
Look Behind
Rotate Left	Left
Rotate Right	Right
Switch Camera Position	V
Toggle Camera Distance	0
Zoom In	=
Zoom Out	-

Music

Function	Primary Binding	Secondary Binding
Next Track	]
Previous Track	[
Resume/Pause Playback	Right Control	\

Interface

Function	Primary Binding	Secondary Binding
Accept Offer	Y
Decline Offer	N
Call For Backup	B
Scoreboard	Tab
Character Info	J
Groups & Friends	U
Inventory	I
Locker	L
Map	M
Music Player	P
Options	O
Last Hint	H
Clan Management	,
View Support Pages	F1
Leagues	F6
Quick Chat	/
Quick Reply	Backspace
Chat Window	Enter
Open Full Chat	Home
Chat Channel Commands	F9
Chat Console Commands	F10
Chat Emote Commands	F11
Main Chat Scroll Down	Page Down
Main Chat Scroll Up	Page Up
Screenshot	Print Screen
Toggle HUD	F12