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Sunday, January 2, 2011

End of Week 7 Update : Two key "to do" items; CB Client Build and Network Redesign

Happy New Year - time for a New APB!

Happy New Year to all APB-ers. I hope you had a great Holiday, and just like us, I hope you are ready for some really exciting things in 2011. Our New Years vow is simple; launch APB in 2011 :)

So based on the transition work and R&D over the last several weeks, we now have enough clarity to at least make an initial prediction of when we will launch Closed Beta. Right now it looks like sometime in late February if everything goes exactly according to plan (and we know how often that happens :) ), but let's at least put it out there, CB will likely start sometime in February. Over the next week the team (lead by Jon-Enée, aka. Neume) will share exactly how you will be able to apply for participating in the CB, and we will then post the CB signup info as part of next week's update (and Neume will then also start sharing the details on the message boards as soon we are ready).

So what are the main obstacles we are currently facing (ie things that might derail the date, and/or make us delay CB)? Well, that's today's update. Be warned - it's a VERY tech-heavy but hopefully it gives you guys a sense of what we are working on behind the scenes.

Two key items that need to be in place before CB;
(1) New Game Client and (2) New Network for GamersFirst.


I will keep info on item (1) - the new game client - very short this week. I know I know, that's the most exciting update I could give, so you have to hold on for another week for more details. The exact config of the client will be THE focus for each update in each of the next several weeks, so at the moment all I will say is that the Closed Beta client will be a LITTLE bit smaller than the original shipping client, it will have a basic "premium" system built in, various balance fixes, and we MIGHT be able to turn on the chaos rule-set (!). The last one still requires some extensive QA, but that should give you guys an idea of what we are hoping to include in the first closed beta.

Therefore this week I will focus the discussion on item (2) that has to be fully sorted out before APB can go live; a brand new network for GamersFirst, and that means a brand new network for APB as well. This will likely be my last post that exclusively deals with items "external" to the game itself, since starting next week our discussion will focus on in-game features (so for non-tech-heads, this might be a good place to stop reading :) ).

Separate and apart from the actual APB game development efforts, our top-to-bottom network redesign is now a prerequisite for the APB launch. The redesign is not a small nor simple task, especially as we are in the midst of launching several other new games, trying to minimize any downtime to all our existing games during the transition, and on top of this, are also poised to launch APB with its massive network demands. The best analogy is that what we are attempting to do is like changing the engine oil while speeding down the highway at 100 miles per hour. Really tricky stuff. And bound to cause some mishaps along the way.

So why go through the trouble?

Historically, dating as far back as 2005, GamersFirst had servers in a lot of locations (Irvine, New York, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Sao Paulo and Vienna) using a broad mix of various managed hosting setups as well as directly owned colo configs, and purchasing bandwidth from various single-homed providers. This patchwork of services caused various issues over the years, though our IT team put up a valiant fight in each instance to keep things running as smoothly as possible in spite of a sometimes overly "complex" architecture. After I joined the company a few years ago, one of the long-term wish-list items was to redesign and consolidate all the network assets, especially since some of the original designs were not the most secure nor the most cost-effective (something that became apparent during multiple attempted attacks against Knight Online by Turkish and Chinese nationals trying to inject game-gold and during various DDoS attacks).

Oddly enough, taking on more of the back-end network ownership should actually simplify our lives, and also reduces our long-term cost of delivering high end game services, and improves our ability to pin-point service problems in various regions. APB just happened to pop-up while we were in the middle of this massive redesign. Not really a problem, but something that certainly makes the initial APB re-launch just a little slower than we had originally hoped for.

Owning our network

In late August 2010 we were approved as an AS (Autonomous System) by ARIN and technically also as an ISP (since one of our business lines is to host games for other companies). We then promptly started building out what will become the new network, and have very slowly started moving some test traffic onto the Los Angeles portion of the new configuration. As of this moment 80% of our stuff still runs on the old network, with about 20% of traffic being pushed out of our new network. By the end of February we expect to reverse that and hope to have 80% of traffic running on the new network, and APB would be one of those key items running on the new and improved system.

The new design consists of a peering edge in Los Angeles with more than 20 Gbps of connected capacity, a new peering location (and hosting location) in Washington D.C with multiple peers, and a new peering and hosting location in Frankfurt, Germany (and in the process we are decommissioning New York, Amsterdam, London and Vienna) and a stand alone node in Sao Paulo. Between each of our core hosting locations we are going to be running multiple redundant OC-48 paths, and in the process of doing so, we will also be shutting down the jumble of internet access providers we have used previously (or in some cases, upgrading how their services are delivered to us; from being a consumer of IP services to being a direct IP peer). OC-48 is telco speak for a private DWDM fiber connection that actually lets us cross connect our core datacenters across private fiber optic strands.

The biggest benefit for the player; presuming we are well-peered enough (see the below discussion) you should be able to reach the games using fewer hops from your current internet broadband provider than you would use today. Also as soon as your traffic reaches any one of our new key nodes (Washington, Los Angeles, Frankfurt or Sao Paulo) if for any reason you need to connect to one of our far-away nodes, then your traffic would be routed through our private DWDM fiber optic backbone between our core locations once those strands are lit up (ie - the traffic would be physically "off" the public internet and now literally be sent by direct fibers between our locations). In most cases this would be a big benefit, since our network literally would move the data at the speed of light between our private nodes without any need for a public router hop.

Right now with the limited state of the current setup you can see our initial peering report (courtesy of Hurricane Electric): http://bgp.he.net/AS36187 or in graphical form: http://bgp.he.net/AS36187#_graph4 . It shows that at the moment our not yet fully deployed network is multi-homed with two direct peers (Telia and PacketExchange / Mzima). We will have at least one additional direct peer in each location by the time we go live, in addition to tapping in to two public peering exchanges (which would give us a whole slew of peers).

So, what does all this mumbo-jumbo mean? Being multi-homed (with at least two, but preferably three or more peers/providers) means that if one of our upstream peers were to explode (or do something nutty with their routing), traffic will still be able reach us across one of the other upstream providers. It also allows us to perform some basic traffic shaping (for example, it might turn out that in a specific country we might have better performance using a certain provider, and we can then prefer a certain peer for some of the traffic).

The HE toolkit is actually a great little collection of webpages you can use to figure out what various companies (those 37,000 or so companies that as of today actually announce origin routes globally that is) actually look like on the BGP-networking end:

Nexon America http://bgp.he.net/AS26236
Activision Publishing http://bgp.he.net/AS40551
Facebook http://bgp.he.net/AS32934
Amazon http://bgp.he.net/AS16509
Netflix http://bgp.he.net/AS2906

One word of warning; to have any kind of fun with this, you must be a network geek, but since I figure that some of you reading this blog might be geeks, this could be an interesting introduction to BGPv4 peering for you. It's worth noting that Facebook (the worlds biggest site in terms of visitors) have 63 direct IPv4 peers, and Netflix (the worlds largest site in terms of traffic volume moved per day) has only 6 direct IPv4 peers (though they currently move most of their traffic through LimeLight according to the report, which clearly is extremely well peered on its own).

You'll quickly realize (using the search function), that a lot of game companies don't ever go through the trouble of building their own global directly owned network, and instead rely on various providers to give them the first internet service hop. That's a perfectly fine strategy, and one that we have used for a long time, but with the launch of APB, the launch of four other MMO's on our site in 2011, as well as the complete network redesign that we were undertaking to improve performance and security, it made perfect sense for us to go down this route at this time and become a global wholesale network provider (more or less). Yes - technically you could actually now buy bandwidth FROM us on three continents, though I don't think we really have a business model for that yet :)

All this exciting network stuff just means it will make the APB launch just a little more exciting as well, given the fun complexities involved in launching the game on a brand new network. Our critical IT team will certainly have a lot of exciting things going on in the next several days.

Sticking to our mission that we are planning to share a LOT of information with the community as we go along, hopefully this gives everyone a sense of how the future APB network will operate. As new parts of it go live (like DC and Germany), I will point those out in future posts, as we get closer to actual production time.

Next week marks the beginning of the detailed game client discussions, so stay tuned!

Cheers,

51 comments:

  1. Sucks we wont be able to play apb until late feb BUT I love those network updates. :) You guys are definitely going bigtime

    could you mention what kind of numbers you guys looking to accommodate on the closed beta?

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  2. Will us old owners of the game get any special treatment? Just wondering :P

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  3. Happy New year and thanks for keeping up the hard work it is much appreciated. Can't wait for cb, and future updates. JoseWhales Larocha 850+ hours

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  4. Great update, guys. Really looking foreward to next week so I can finally get that application in.

    And that dedicated network sounds phenomenal. Good work!

    Keep it going, this is all fantastic news.

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  5. You guys are killing me, late feb :(

    But nice on the network upgrade :D

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  6. Thank you very much Bjorn. But I still have a question for: to be a way out the trailers and gameplays with the time development of the game? Thank you
    (Google Translate)

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  7. well it would seem to me like you guys really are pulling your finger out and trying to help the good people of san paro enjoy a lag free game after all. With all the resources you are putting in place to help with the throughput of traffic, I think that this shows us all that you are going to treat the game with the respect it is due.

    Looks good on paper that you are putting in the fibre and that if the worst comes tot he worst (blown up datacentre ouch) then we will all still be connected withouth real interruption.

    I honestly thought the BETA would have been a little closer to completion and release but it is better that you are taking your time with it because there is no point throwing out the game for the hell of it and after all us hardcore APB Fan Boys are in the for the long haul with you.

    Looking forward to next weeks news..

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  8. A very interesting read - my heart breaks a little at the thought of another 2 month wait for APB, but the network restructure sounds especially wonderful for me, as I live in the UK and have a great many friends in the US I'd want to play with.

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  9. That was REALLY hard to translate, Bjorn!

    But theme of networks was interesting to me. I want to point out one more important question- bots. In old APB there was a tons of them. Now it'll becomes f2p and amount of bots must increase significally. Have you guys any idea how to fight them? "Token" system (like in la2), other "keys", hidden dll's?

    And, one more thing. As long as I representative of Russian community (currently- APB:R moderator on G1st forums), I'd like to say - some of russians cant speak english or translate text. It's very hard for them to participate in all english-language events. So, before Neume will post about beta access, I want to ask a few beta keys (or accounts, etc, dunno what it'll be) for russian community. I'll make a rus-signup, provide information to G1st team and translate all the feedback ru-en.

    Thx for attention and good luck! ;)

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  10. When someone loves their work it shows. What G1 is doing with APB is wonderful and I can't wait to see future strategies in resolving problems. The network plan sounds adequate in it's capacity to deal with your network traffic and streamline it too.
    I would love to try the chaos rule-set, but I fear it may take away from the actual enhancing of the main rule-set. We shall see in time.
    KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
    Mike

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  11. Great news!!! U guys r doing a amazing job. I love this game.

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  12. Wow, this really is an ambitious year for GamersFirst. The network restructure sounds like it'll make G1 the perfect place for APB, or any other MMO for that matter. Best of luck with it all.

    Glad to see a best-guess date for APB's CB. Assuming it opens up in Feb, my guess is it'll be OB by April. No? Either way, APB by mid-2011 sounds awesome.

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  13. Please please please do whatever it takes to get Chaos rules when the game launches live. This was probably the most requested feature for APB.

    I hope all this networking restructuring works for you guys, I really don't have any idea what all that stuff is but it sounds good.

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  14. Have you guys actually thought out the whole districts thing?

    chaos: people will complain that the ruleset is to messy to do anything. 40v40 is kinda nuts ...

    pureskill: vehicle explosion and grenade damage has to be balanced so people don't get 1 shot it and come and complain that the ruleset is broken.I dont mention ltl cause we dont know whats gonna happen to them but clearly SOMETHING has to be done

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  15. Finally i have been waiting to get into the beta.But i have a question, i have not deleted the APB launcher, so am i going to have to download a new launcher or will i be able to use the one i have already?

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  16. Now we have a network for our housing and pets suggestion!

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  17. I think its an interesting idea that you are considered an ISP. the idea brings great ideas to bring in more revenue so you're not as reliant on people buying from the item mall (not that we won't, but if you make enough with other ventures you can change the item mall to maybe just be things that make your character look cool instead of enhancing game play as much).

    I'm looking forward to playing the reboot of the game, sounds like fun!

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  18. I love that you guys are sharing a ton of information with us.

    But is it a one sided conversation? Do you guys read the comments on here? I know sometimes its silly rambling, but there is occasionally good feedback, especially from people who previously played APB.

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  19. If you want the a semi-veteran and casual gamer in the closed-beta, I'm your guy.

    I love this game so much, and to help improve it would mean a lot to me.

    I do not get angry like most other gamers do, I have patience, I try to understand and I try to give the best feedback possible on the matter.

    So yeah, if you need the viewpoint of a casual gamer, I'm available.

    I have no idea if this will be read, but I'm giving it a shot.

    My email is:
    Daniel-edvardsdal@hotmail.com

    Best of luck with the game, I am really looking forward to it!

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  20. You have no idea how happy I am that GamersFirst are in charge. I love the amount of upto date detail you provide us, and I CANNOT WAIT for closed beta (although of course I will, and very patiently at that). This latest news is just fantastic.

    Who needs a January on in the calendar anyway??! Bring on February and those beta test days......

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  21. Just out of curiosity, Bjorn, did you or any of your team actually play APB while it was out? If not, you seriously need to get a hold of emails from the original player base and get these people in the Closed Beta. If you didn't play with us, you have no idea how we were playing the game and thus, no idea what our concerns were. I played as Kayli on the US Zombie server and created the totally unique "tan lines" design for my character. No need to be alarmed...it's a safe link to an Image Shack picture I uploaded.

    http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3385/kaylitanlines.jpg

    Please get in touch with me if you want me to get in touch with my old gang, Criminal Alliance, to help you beta test this bad boy.

    - Keno the Rat

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  22. You can do it! :) Looking forward to seeing APB get back on it's feet.

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  23. why wait again.. we wait alot now , last new you say 1st week of janvier luncher avalible , and now fevrier and maybe close beta before , i have pay the game to rtw and the beta is over , lunch the game stop the hell now stop playing whit the people , we need play now

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  24. http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/i373/Snakewomen26/masterandsophincar.jpg

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  25. Oddly it was this comment that caught my eye "the launch of four other MMO's on our site in "

    Also as was said above, if you never got a chance to play then what "balance" issues are you dealing with?

    besides fixing the range and fire rate of the LTL nl9 - Please fix the pistols. You should not be able to snipe someone using a sniper rifle back using a pistol (ever)

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  26. Master775 - I really hope English isn't your first (or third) language.

    Yes, some of us paid RTW. Guess what? RTW don't exist anymore. Yes, we wait. Why? Because there's no magic "fix the game" button. Software development (and fixing) is hard work. They could dump the entire dataset to you (say, fedex a few giant disk arrays overnight) and you know what? We'd still have to wait.

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  27. maybe alot of work in grafique for change the name rtw in the city except that thing , the game can run and patched after , apb is the first game i see closed so fast the game can run! we need only host , rtw have patched alot the game and the last update is not very good , alot of people dont like the ready not ready systeme

    i come from quebec , engish is no my first language

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  28. This blog is filled with a lot of ignorant readers lately, lol. Anyone else notice that?

    Sit down and shut up. Be patient or the game will suck. Not much else to say besides that except for GF to keep up the fantastic work.

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  29. shut up and wait , maybe we say that by the last september ! anyway after what apb make to the client , we never trust that anymore , apb is die !

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  30. In Germany we have a saying: "Good things come to those who wait." ;)
    (translation from leo.org)

    I also can´t wait to play APB again, but i think it´s better if it take two or three month more and we get a perfected game, than we got the old crap...

    And if I unterstand the last update right, the complete network has to be transformed before we can play again?!

    Another saying in Germany is: "Anticipatory joy is the greatest joy" ;)

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  31. I cant wait to get my hands on this game again - being one of the first in and last out... i really hope they let a decent amount of people into CB. Late Feb is right around the corner... ill be waiting eagerly to find out details on CB!!!

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  32. Sounds very couragious to build such a big network, i don't understand the techtalk, but it's nice that you give so much info about the background.

    Whatever you do, please take your time, don't rush things. I know there are lot of players who can't wait to finally play and biting their nails off, but imo these players should be patient. Make everything perfect, i think you don't get a third chance with this game and the first month after release counts the most!

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  33. " it will have a basic "premium" system built in, various balance fixes, and we MIGHT be able to turn on the chaos rule-set (!)"

    So if I understand correctly the beta build will be APB with a few balance fixes?
    Why are we beta testing that? It's been 'beta tested' by a whole bunch of players, just not chaos mode?
    Hopefully the game will at least be a lot more tweaked and different than the original APB at release. Because not many people are waiting to just play the same APB again ;)

    Of course I understand if you want to test the actual infrastructure, few fixes and chaos ruleset thoroughly first. And then move on from there :) Just making sure...

    Sandrock from BIA (Obeya server). BIA would love to help test, we all play together as a group all the time so should be good data!

    keep it up.

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  34. what alot of people want is play the game , the waiting time is soo over for the gamer , the chaos mod have never work is patched on the last day of apb maybe rtw have put the last dolard on it , if you have the data base (profil-server) is the best to put it online again , the game run very well a little of crash and a bad raport systeme maybe , if you want i can admin (gm) i have alot of time and i have over of 700h online on apb , you can e-mail me : ( jfblanchette@live.ca ), i have alot of coment of how to get the game best if you want that , just for now we waiting for playing this game , i like that game style , car , gun , mod the parts ..
    unique caractere , please dont change all of this make this game great and lunch that

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  35. Master, stop saying words.

    Raul. I understand where you're ocming from but it's a BETA test. A closed beta at that. It's not being released because it's what gamers want to play. It's being released so they can get direct evaluation of how players interact with the game, first hand, as well as getting info and suggestions from reliable sources.

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  36. Hi Guys, i really think, this game is the best, and i really hope you can get it to work better then RTW, Coors ther ar a lot of bug fixing in this game, i have bin in the Beta program when RTW whose the proved owner of this game, and i can se, you are getting a better Network up for this game, that whose one of the probs for the game that time, i really look foreword to play this game again, or help you get the game up in Clost Beta Testing ;o).

    A True Fan of APB, Beeni.

    P.S. this is to you master775, STOP the god damn whining, the game will be out when it is ready, and not whit all the bugs in it.

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  37. ''P.S. this is to you master775, STOP the god damn whining, the game will be out when it is ready, and not whit all the bugs in it.''

    the game is ready by alot of time , the trouble is in the hand of the player sometime pc and driver , if he want find the bug . more money out and maybe the same end of rtw soon . learn that windows like the bug , i can play whit the bug because i cant not play whitout windows and a offline server , by this time they are alot of other game for play and give my money ( combat arms , eve online , wic )

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  38. Master, use google translate.

    Trouble NOT in game, trouble in law. We talking about NEW game, with NEW business-model, and you talking about old apb. Deal with it and stop screaming, it will not change anything.

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  39. Let's start a petition to ban Master from the Beta.

    For the lulz.

    And more importantly for the safety of the game.

    xD

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  40. yeah great start the petision , anyway the beta dont have the place there for me ! and if i am ban i have alot of pc alot of e-mail and alot of money for buy game copy , anytime i see my name i reply why do you dont just shut up about me ? you cant not maybe?
    inside quebec there are a petision for the 1st menister (quebec leader jean charet) 75% of the quebec hate this men but he is on the lead again and again.. , who is the more bad , a great player there never hack (me) or a stupid game saling 60$ + day for play and close after 90 day ! sure this stupid game by the name apb! maybe a cool game but the stupid compagny have make it crash hard
    , maybe nobuddy of you have see the petision for apb and the private server web site www.actiondistrict.com

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  41. I love APB, I guess I am the only one who JUST wants balancing and hacking fixed? And nothing else but mandatory things? I LOVE APB!!!!!!!!

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  42. THanks for giving us a closed beta chance, now people Beta means you play the game and try to break it, you try to find errors (or exploits) and report them to the developers (I remember being on the closed beta for Auto Assault picked up about 5 bugs in it that I can remember). Also what's the word on getting old accounts back?

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  43. Glad to hear you guys are reworking on the network (didn't read all of it, need to start getting ready for work), but I know APB will need a good system, with all its info that must be handeled, also would love to see the chaos server. Alot of talk went on that is Chaos came online and the hackers could have been dealt with better it might have saved the original APB, so I'll leave you guys with some advice, Anti-Cheat protect the hell out of that Chaos server.

    AS for the rest keep up the good work I have been so excited to hear of APBs purchased and ever since that day I have not lost any excitment (Although I still pray to get my old account and designs back, cause having to recreate alot of those would suck).

    APB FOREVER! (Ange1ofD4rkness)

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  44. Since it hasn't been answered, and I've only seen one comment about it so far, will people who bought the original game be allowed in the beta?

    On a more technical note, will recoding with in unreal engine mean that the horrible memory leaks in the game will be resolved? I had 4GB of ram back then, and I still had to restart it after a few hours.

    Oh, and since it will be free-to-play, is there any chance of custom servers with a modding capability enabled? You would not have access to any experience or money of course on third party servers, but it would be interesting to play with mods. It might also be fun to play with rebalanced weaponry, or even entirely new vehicles, mission types, etc. This would mean less of a hold on it, which may impact income, but you can always watch content and if something gets popular try and buy it to sell on the regular servers.

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  45. In all seriousness I think at least progress from old accounts should be wiped.

    If at all possible, let us keep our custom designs and stuff like that. Things that won't effect gameplay, but took us a lot of work anyway.

    But wipe the progress of old characters. If the game is released with new mechanics and rules, it would be a little ridicules to have a bunch of players running around with level 3 upgrades, insane weapons, a pretty much already complete game, and all that jazz from the get-go. Besides being a little unfair, it would leave them with nothing much to do at all except fight lower leveled players.

    If wiping progress also wipes our ability to use cars we earned, at least retain our car designs so we can re-apply them when we re-earn that vehicle.


    Actually. Now that I think of it... let us save car designs, damn it. It's beyond aggravating when you buy a decent 1 slot car... then eventually upgrade to a 2, 3, or 4 slot version of the same exact car, but have to COMPLETELY re-make the design from scratch. Pain in the penis, i'm telling you.

    And to add to that, just for design purposes, not sale purposes. If you give players the ability to sell car designs and only the designs, it would all but obliterate the market for unique cars. A big selling point I had in APB was custom designs. Mostly in clothing, but I did a good amount of custom car work too. A good designer can take a $40,000 car and sell it for $250,000 or more if their design is boss. If you give the ability to sell designs only, it will kill that market.

    -Rapid99


    PS: I love you guys. Seriously. If I get accepted into beta, there's no doubt my schedule will be nothing but College-Work-APB Testing. There is nothing more I want than to be able to say I was a part of making this game better in some way.

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  46. @Rapid99
    "Raul. I understand where you're ocming from but it's a BETA test. A closed beta at that. It's not being released because it's what gamers want to play. "


    Yup I realize that and as a BETA that's fine. Just want to make sure they realize that APB:Reloaded has to be a lot more than just APB with a few balance fixes AT RELEASE for it to become successful. It's better voice certain concerns which might not be warranted because they aren't a problem than to not voice them and have it turn out that it was warranted and now it's too late ;)

    I'm just curious what the aim of the initial beta test will be if it's just APB with balance fixes and the chaos ruleset. Is it to test the infrastructure (in that case if you are beta testing you can just play the game as normal) is it to provide accurate feedback on those balance fixes, and are those balance fixes how they perceive the game to be at release too. After all there is no point in doing balance fixes now and completely changing the game later on. So if they are doing balance fixes how do they see the future of the game. I guess it won't change a lot. Which can be a concern, since it wasn't successful in it's latest known form.

    Is it just to test the chaos mode and are the balance fixes just so that during the current beta test it's more balanced gameplay and thus a better test for people playing. But will a lot change till release.


    My concern is they might not realize that no matter how much fun the game was, it got stale pretty quick, and it needs changing and improvement for it to become a successful game.
    Most of my friends had already quit about a month before the game actually died. And I only played perhaps once a week at that time.

    There is already negative word out on APB, lots of bad reviews, a game dying isn't good publicity. This means that a relaunch of a unsuccessful game needs to show potential players that a lot has changed, it's not a game worth investing time in, worth trying out. They need to take all those concerns away and bring positive word out on the virtual streets of the internet, which has to be done by showing how the game is different and has been changed a lot.
    Hearing "a few balance fixes" makes me concerned that they are just trying to tweak things here and there and add a few other game modes like the chaos ruleset and that'll make it a successful game....

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  47. "it's not a game worth investing time in, worth trying out."

    Has to be

    "it's now a game worth investing time in,"

    :p

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  48. So I still haven't seen any word on whether former APB players will get any special perks. I had a month of game time and had purchased game time, in either hours or month-unlimited form, around ten times over the course of the first release of All Points Bulletin.

    Also are you keeping a similar marketplace structure to APB release one, like where you can gain cash points through clever trading?

    I am happy that this game is being resurrected, and even though I have never been a huge fan of Warrock or other 2k/Gamersfirst games, I quite like the direction that this game seems to be going.

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  49. I can definitely help test closed beta. I live in Los Angeles and since there's gonna be a server here, I should have a pretty optimal connection. =)

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  50. you guys need to try to eventually make this game for consoles like rtw was planning on doing

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