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Sunday, March 6, 2011

End of Closed Beta Week No. 1 - a recap

Wow - what a week!

So clearly I have to thank everyone in our various global teams for coming together in an amazing fashion to make this CB run possible. Very exciting. And a whole lot of work.

What's scary now is the staggering amount of work that still remains ahead for the rest of the year. But at least now we have proven that the game can be resurrected, and the next chapter is entirely going to be focused on improving the game progression, improving the servers and improving everything else that remotely touches the game in the long term. 

So first of all - some closed beta observations:

The NTEC is all-powerful.
Mid last week we had to de-power the shotgun that could blow up a car in (almost) one shot. This week we will have to deal with how to best handle the NTEC (and possibly even the STAR). So, the good news - the new NTEC surely is a good gun. The bad news, pretty much everyone uses the NTEC in game. That was not really the intent, and is a focus during this week's balancing exercises, which involves actually measuring the usage of all guns in the game.

This IS a CLOSED BETA.
It occurs to me (and the whole team), that some people testing the game are not really familiar with the whole idea behind participating in a closed beta, and instead think this is like playing a live game. It is not. It IS a closed beta test. I do need to point out that most players are doing just fine as CB testers and are diligently filling out reports of issues and bugs, but there are a few who clearly are NOT doing really that great.

The entire purpose of CB is to validate the basic game systems, work out all game balance issues, solve server lag, identify any performance problems, identify any unexpected crashes and identify serious game play or progression issues. Especially since right now we only have the Los Angeles location operating the game to test all routes to that one location. Let's be clear - there are SEVERAL of these issues in the game that we are working on right now. Therefore the biggest help for the team are well written bug reports of issues that you encountered in the game or details of any unexpected behaviors that you can document thoroughly. The least amount of help is pointing out that there is a lot of lag from the UK to Los Angeles. Yup - we know there is a lot of lag from the UK to Los Angeles. Instead we ask players focus on items that can actually help improve the game.

Server performance issues (and upgrades)
It's clear that the 100-person districts can only actually run properly on Intel X5570 processors and above. However, we initially were a bit baffled since the district threads (there can be 4 district threads running per processor) were behaving erratically last week and were randomly dropping the server-side tick rates dramatically (causing some server side lag), until we realized that the X-series processors were configured to run in a standard energy saving mode. That created a lot of random frame-lag on the server side whenever the Intel processors arbitrarily decided to reduce the clock rate. This has since been resolved, and this coming week we are working to further increase server tick-rate performance and aiming to eliminate server side lag as much as possible. One thing to keep in mind with APB Reloaded is that there can be as many as 100 players engaged in a single thread. For comparison, most other FPS games don't permit more than 16 v 16 or in some cases 32 v 32. In theory we could actually turn on 50 v 50 in APB in all-out war mode (which is essentially what Chaos mode is) and for future hardware upgrades go even higher in a single district and still maintain good FPS style performance.

The LATENCY tag in the /FPS in game switch
In the game you can run a command called /FPS and you will see both client, server and latency information. The latency information however turns out to be a bit out of wack. Normally you'd expect there to be a "ping" command (to tell you how far away the servers are), but latency actually creates a hybrid measurement, AND it has a couple of minor bugs in it to boot. Our developers looked at this over the weekend, and it turns out that it measures client frame rate (so a 30fps frame rate would give you 33.3ms for this portion) plus round trip (average of 60ms) plus server ticks (so at 15-20 ticks/s on the server that'd be 50ms). That means it's unlikely anyone will see anything less than 100-120ms. That would be ok I guess (though rather meaningless), except that on the return to the server for some reason the client sends it back as UDP traffic. This means that the packets basically can (and will) arrive in all kinds of strange arrangements (if at all) since UDP is designed to permit lossy behavior. When a packet then arrives out of order or disappears (as its permitted to do in UDP), then the bug is that "latency" starts counting upward until it maxes out at 1020ms - even though that's not actually what happened at the traffic level, since it might just have re-ordered one UDP packet along the way. So, the team is going to work on fixing "latency" so that it measures something more meaningful as soon as possible. The basic idea of an end-to-end processing measurement is a good one. But the current implementation just needs to be refined a bit.

If you are curious about PING times to the game, you can ping the core routers that were listed in the original application. Pinging www.gamersfirst.com will NOT work, since that site sits behind batches of DDoS protection, which WILL mess up ping times.

Pando Media Booster impacting network traffic?
We use a P2P program to get people the client faster given how big it is (and it's used by several other games, like DDO, LOTRO and others, just as Blizzard uses a P2P protocol for their downloader as well). This is also not too dissimilar to how Skype works (most people probably don't realize that all Skype traffic and calls travels across other people's computers to get to the destination, which is why those Skype calls are indeed free).

Normally we don't have a lot of issues with the Pando component, but there have been some suggestions that it might increase the LATENCY counter in the /FPS command (just as Skype or any Torrents might). We haven't seen this happening or being a big issue, but, we will look in to see if we can throttle it while the game is running to ensure no resources are used for anything except the game.

We use Pando so that end-users get much better download speed especially during giant "patch-storms" when new patches get released. Contrary to what some conspiracy theories suggest, it's actually not a relevant price difference when compared to hosting the patches on CDN servers of our own (which we also do) since Pando is something we pay for from our end, but it simply seems to work better for end users and makes the download and patching process incredibly resilient and nearly unbreakable.

This also leads to some interesting situations such as users in Romania getting their games 4X faster than US players, since most of Romanian players play in internet cafes (and since Pando enables patches to move P2P across a local LANs instead of the internet, that means as soon as a single user in the cafe has downloaded the first file, subsequent file requests mostly don't cross the public wire, and the same of course would also be true in case you used the program inside a corporate network or other LAN of any kind).

If you have any issues with the program you can either open the Control Panel that says Pando Media Booster (32-bit), and under "Advanced Connection Settings" you can configure the options the program uses (like limiting upload speeds). You can also use the instructions on Pando's site to disable it completely: http://www.pando.com/help-faq-mb  - however - keep in mind that chances are you will need it next time there is a giant patch simply because of the patch load that we tend to see when the patches get distributed.

Where do we go from here?
Wow. Lots of stuff coming up. First of all, we all like the basic premise in the Financial and Waterfront districts presuming we address some of the matchmaking and ranking issues (which is on tap next), but as we have mentioned before, we are also working in the long term to vastly expand the options players have to engage each other in. Everything from actual car-races in-game to all-out turf war missions and possibly entire districts and maps focused on those engagement styles.

Will we send out more invites this week?
Probably. So far we have invited 10,000 people, and are seeing a consistent 1,200 peak CCU during this very initial test phase, which is great. We are in the process of analyzing all the bug reports, Closed Beta feedback information, and a few scattered crash and compatibility reports we have seen to date. So as soon as we have rolled out a few more fixes to the game, we will consider starting up the next round of invites.

What's next this week?
This week is focused on performance optimization, game balance, some minor bug fixes, and the overall EU datacenter configuration. We have another 140,000 people to let in at some point, and we are continuing to work toward letting everyone in to CB in prior to the start of OB.

We also have a slew of new feature and items scheduled for Open Beta, which is why the Open Beta patch is going to be a VERY different beast (but of course incorporating all the balance and game play learning we have gained from the Closed Beta).

I plan on updating this blog mid-week. Our overall goal is to continue providing an enormous amount of information to everyone while we move the game toward OB, and eventual "Live" operation.

Cheers,

100 comments:

  1. Another great post, thanks! :)
    Glad to see there's alot of activity on your end. Also can't wait to start testing the game.
    Also very happy you address the N-Tec if it indeed was too powerful.

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  2. Whoever not seeing that NTEC nerf is coming up, was probably blind ;)

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  3. Awesome... good to hear things are progressing!

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  4. MMM interesting things... but... I will wait to go to te CB or the OB to comment anything.

    But I have to say that I´m a bit disliked with G1, because there is a lot of people have publishied videos, images and some information about the CB; and G1 is doing nothing with those that are breaking the NDA.

    Well, I hope to use the STABBA as soon as I take, if I´m a bit lucky, a BC key.

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  5. Good news about the NTEC, saw it coming and everyone else should have seen it as well.

    Did not know about the /fps command's latency being inaccurate, but good to know that will be fixed.

    You guys are doing a great job so far, keep it up! Just don't overwork yourselves ;)

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  6. Pando Media Booster isn't that good, League of Legends and many other games use it too, and very often error results from that programm, with often highly increased ping/latencys. The programm simply uses ALL of your upload while your playing or not playing, its an enorm trafficbooster, that are not really all happy with.

    Better solution would be a launcher like world of warcraft which uses a http server and torrent technology.

    honestly sebsch

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  7. Great news letting everyone in on CB eventually!
    I just bought Saints Row 2 in pure frustration and it made me miss APB even more(due to being pure shit compared to APB).

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  8. glad to see that the situation about the NTEC is being overlooked!

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  9. That's what I always knew about CBTs...Nearly 25% of randomly invited people really test the game...others just 'play' it and whine that the GAME is a trash not understanding that the have to test and not to play...moreover it's not even a game yet,it's more like a unfinished demo...

    So,IMHO,random selection of CBT participants is always a bad idea.

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  10. Thanks for the update. Good to hear you are taking balancing steps asap. Please look into all the TTK threads on the forum. A lot of people don't understand why you changed this when it was fine in the original APB and nobody complained about it.

    Hope the EU datacenter will come up without any problems ;)

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  11. Will the ingame bug reporter be fixed up so it works? Also, would be nice to have an attach screenshot option to take a picture of the bug.

    -Publik

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  12. I can't wait for game!!! Forward this and sent keys to europe!!!

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  13. Hi there!

    I would like to provide some insight into the NTEC that might help you make decisions on how best to balance it.

    I am a top level clan player since the first beta, and I am seeing the exact same decision making my high level players in APB Reloaded.

    I am sure you probably know this on your own, but I would love to provide any insight.

    So much of the use of the NTEC is due to the fact that we can only equip one weapon, weapon swap times are frequently too inconvenient / long to be used without making it a huge gamble.

    Situationally, the NTEC is simply the best all around performer.

    I think if you were to examine the mission system, you would be able to greatly affect the weapon choices made by players.

    I would love to see something along the lines of:

    Mission X always ends with a wide open capture point.

    Mission Y always has its 3rd point in a very cramped space.

    This allows players to anticipate the environment they will be fighting in and make equipment decisions based on this information.

    While NTEC damage may be too high, I feel that at the high end the reason it is used so heavily is not because of any property (high level players can kill with any weapon equally well) but because we are so frequenly forced to make equipment decisions blind - because the environment determines effectiveness.

    We experimented a great deal within one squad as to the best equipment makeup - 2ntec 1obir 1shotgun etc etc

    The shotgun is so situational that it is quite possible that you play a match where an environment that plays to the shotgun's strengths simply does not appear.

    Ultimately we settled on 3ntec 1obir as this was consistently the best, as the obir could nearly always find a direction to be effective, and the workhorse is the NTEC.

    Giving experienced players the ability to anticipate environments will not force players to hedge bets so heavily and go with the NTEC, ultimately increasing the variety of play.

    Nerfing the ntec damage may change the usage slightly but the nerfing will need to be massive in order to make it used less simply because it is one of the few guns you can blindly select based on environment.

    thanks,i hope i can stir some discussion! I really want APB to be a huge success!

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  14. So this week is gonna be the EU wave I think :)

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  15. eu quero que vcs vaum tudo se fude
    esperei um tempão pra jogar essa merda de jogo e nada realmente os brasileiros fico de fora
    seus americano pau no cú so sabe lambe a bunda desses europeus seu fdp do caralho tomara que essa merda se foda pq vcs so pença no seus cú seus filha da puta

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  16. Nice post.

    Posted a comment in the other one about ppl just wanting get into beta to play the game, not testing and its nice to see this post that the DEV's actually noticed this to.

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  17. @Parker I'm sorry but you do not sound like a "top level clan player" if I hear your feedback. Top level players know how useful the mobile supply unit is and how easy and effective it is to swap weapons depending on the mission and the environment. Even between stages. Good players also knew the most important missions by name, their stages and what sort of environment you'd likely be fighting in.
    This meant that swapping weapons was one of the best strategies. With open range battles you'd pop out the HVR, close combat, somebody would grab an SMG or shotgun etc.

    Yes, the NTEC is the most versatile weapon. But that is not the only reason so many people use it. There was a time in RTW APB where the N-TEC was just fine and balanced. It's the changes G1 made to TTK that has upset this balance again.
    (By many regarded an unwarranted and unnecessary change)

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  18. Glad everything is getting patched up, sad to say I didn't received a beta invite (I'm the third wave, that is even if I get in). I had a feeling that a large percentage of the closed beta players are just here to play and not to better the game. Just look at the forums, facebook, twitter and blog.

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  19. I can't wait. Im still waiting on my CB invite.

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  20. Why you invite absolutely casual people on CBT? I viewed today Russian community of funs APB in Vkontakte.ru. Those who has already got on CBT are children. They simply play, instead of test. It is natural that they won't fill reports on errors.

    Why you haven't invited those who was in last game by a beta tester? After all you have such information.

    It is rather surprised that being in last game by a tester, I haven't got in CBT this time.

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  21. i sended my beta key last week but i havent got the backmail. hAve u guys got it cuz yea i realy want 2 play

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  22. Well thats kinda sad..having ppl which are not playing or reporting bugs and whining all day long. You guys failed big time. In application you should have questions like "Previous beta experience" (something like APB,Aion,Microvolts,Rift,HoN, Forsaken World, Special Force,Black Prophecy, Karos online..)and how many hours you can play per week. I mostly play games when they are in beta cuz it's most fun. When game goes live then it's pretty much gone to hell. Hear my roar and start inviting valuable players! =]

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  23. [Quote]Will we send out more invites this week?
    Probably. So far we have invited 10,000 people, and are seeing a consistent 1,200 peak CCU during this very initial test phase, which is great.[/Quote]

    So... from 5,000 invites having 1,000 consistent accounts running, to 10,000 with only 1,200 accounts running? XD

    Epic post though, its good to see some things being changed :-) Keep up the good work homies.

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  24. Great news! You guys are doing a awesome job with this project.

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  25. is the post supposed to say "VERY big beast"? xD Anyway, omg apb ;) I think your making me blow my mind x( Hurry up on the invites x) Nah just joking, take your time cuz I know us beta testers have to slowly 'test' the game and then plump up the numbers ;)

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  26. great! I am following step by step development of the game, although I do not understand English very well .. but seek a way to translate! I'm always following the development of the game and of course waiting for my invitation with great excitement!

    Greetings from Venezuela! I can help to make the ping test! :D! good luck

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  27. @Raul I totally agree. Please reconsider the TTK changes before evaulating and nerfing NTEC.

    Ouch...doubling the number of invites and only seeing +200 in active numbers? I'm glad you guys are at least monitoring how many are providing feedback. Please do us all a favor and remove access to those that aren't, and those that are abusing the NDA. There are so many people who were dedicated APB beta/live players who are ready and willing to assist in the beta test, but haven't got an invite because the selection was first-come first serve, not based on application criteria..

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  28. oke oke just wait for key or for Open Beta...... [fast plz] XD!!

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  29. Ha, i am so glad that everything is going so good ,I am happy about the game is going on again , I didn't tested it when it was up by the Realtime World but I am waiting now my key to test it

    Good work to all
    Be patient
    Cheers from Greece !

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  30. where beta key? i wait 2 weeks
    where eu keys!!!!

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  31. @ejden
    I understand the way you want to pick out the gamers from the testers but anyone could just randomly type in "I participated in the Allods beta and Counter Strike beta" and could get away scott free but yes I think that the people in G1 need a way to verify and if need be discontinue testers that are not fileing reports because thats what we are here to do after all :) Personally I have beta tested "Counter Strike source *the new version*, World of Tanks (currently testing and got to say TDs own normal tanks anyday) So yeah I have beta tested for a few but anyone could automatically go "OMG HE MUST BE UBER" even if I was lieing you see its one of those truth be told or look good situations if you get what Im trying to say :)

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  32. Ive been beta testers for MoH, Dead space 2, Killzone 3, and Lbp 2, and they are tons of people that record gameplay then post it on youtube. Its really sad :,( i haven't played this game yet because g1 hasn't activate me so i cant leave good feedback for glitches bugs and off points.

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  33. I love reading these breakdowns. This is how a game development company should interact with its users. Great job, keep it up!

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  34. Bjorn, what about SLI\ Crossfire support? And two-chipped videos? In old apb with my 4870 HD x2 it performance was TERRIBLE, all was blurry, etc. I fixed some of troubles with disabling A.I., but it still bad.

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  35. wow cant wait to test and help :P
    im active and i hope eu server up with no problims !!!!


    [URL=http://www.purecash.co.il/DistributedClicker.aspx?p=102887x513]מה המזל שלך אומר על סגנון הנישוק שלך?[/URL]

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  36. Well if need extra people that will actually test get me in, very keen eye for detail activate my account sxymikex@gmail.com is who ya need lol hard worker 2

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  37. do hope the N-Tec's nerf isn't to harsh, and instead the other weapons get a useability boost.

    the new pace of the game (provided soly by the current Ntec) is imo just great, nice quick game play and split second decisions or your face down in a puddle of mud.

    the Ntec might be overpowered in comparison to all the weapons but at it's current power... at least u need skill to use it (since everybody else has one it all comes down to u and your aim ((and your ping:P))

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  38. When I will play???

    I'm italian!!!

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  39. closed beta isnt for playing... its for TESTING
    even if u play all accs probbly deleted after cuse closed beta is for TESTING duhh...
    a lot of people got access to the game to test it and they say "i dont want play the game cuse of the lag"
    dude that pisses off cuse u need TEST the game and report bugs and soo not play... waste of invites...

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  40. I agree with those dictated by Squall90.
    We are Italian and wait for confirmation of account activation.

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  41. Guys I cant login to the forms i have plenty of bugs to report as well as many hacks ive seen. but i cant get into the forms it says i dont have an account and yet its the same one i use for APB

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  42. One major issue with guns right now is that you can pretty much cheat the recoil system by rapid tapping the mouse button to fire. Recoil disappears in a split second, so as long as you just tap the left mouse button, you'll get off super accurate shots without any slow down to your firing rate.

    This, factored in with the N-tec being such a good all around weapon, is the reason why it's the most popular choice.

    I really don't think nerfing the N-tec is the solution though... I mean, yes, fix the recoil so that it doesn't recover so quickly after one bullet being fired. But I honestly feel like the other guns are just too weak. It's not any fun to have to shoot someone 10 times to kill them.

    It would be incredibly annoying to have to waste entire clips of ammo just to take out one person who managed to duck behind an obstacle after you've shot them 6 times, fully regen, and make you shoot them 6-7 more times to kill.

    I don't want to see 1 shot kills either, and I feel like the sniper is still a bit too OP just due to the fact that two guys can destroy people with one guy hitting a single sniper shot and anyone else grazing a bullet on you will kill you instantly.

    I think the guns are still quite a bit away from being balanced. This coming from an N-tec user. I want to see recoil actually fixed to not just be exploitable.

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  43. i think snipers "head /heart" shoots shuld one hit othir parts dmg depends
    also cool if normal weps 2 shoot if hit head :P

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  44. Ok i cant get into the forms no matter how hard i try but i can login into the main site just fine. I can get on APB just fine, But i cant get on War rock or the forms with this account. on war rock it says my account is unregistered. WHAT DO I DO!!!!!

    But on to APB yes i have 28 hours in the days its been out and i have to agree the ntec is a gun that will kill some one in 4 shots rather than 8 shots with the obeya.
    Also as stated earlier that the ntec is wicked accurate with rapid clicking is partially because you can bind shoot to the mouse wheel and scroll like a mad man.

    Ping wise I'm good. I'm on the other side of the country and i get 124 ms constant, But does it lag YES. every time i run i skip back every 20 or so feet.

    PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get rid of the hackers. i know that they still work because one person took me and my group of 5 in total out in less than 4 seconds with a sniper rifle. 1 i know hes hacking because he want any where near us. 2. it really doesn't seem possible.

    Thats all i have to say about beta.

    realy looking forward to asylum

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  45. March 8. All Russia celebrats a women's day. And I translate this post for our web-site apb-db.ru. And doing it with pleasure!
    Thanks developers for all efforts on game improvement!

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  46. I'm from EU, and I've downloaded the game, but it is just ready for USA. Will I have to download it again when is ready for EU?

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  47. I am confused. When will the Europe keys be send out? I can't seem to figure that out.

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  48. A rough timescale would be nice, you talk about including all of the applicants 'before the open beta' but are you talking three weeks or six months there?

    Also, I'd like to point out to the other commenters that Bjorn was complaining about too many unhelpful bug reports rather than not enough bug reports (although I'm sure they'd welcome more).

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  49. I downloaded them game and wanted to play it but it always say the my video card dose not meet the requirements meats needed to play
    Dose that mean my computer is old or new?
    please!! please!! some one write back
    please!

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  50. @Jacksonacer4
    If you are using a Nvidia graphics card go to their site and search your card and download the lastest updates. That what I did ;) Also, you should post these problems on the forums.

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  51. @ tonamon456
    i don't know what card i got because i just got this computer but i know its window 7
    so can u reply back
    or can any one help me

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  52. I just tried to log in to the forums on my work computer after posting a few times at home and all of a sudden it's asking me to create a display name. I obviously already have one if I've been posting. It's also not letting me use the one I've been using. Says it's already in use by another member... Yeah, ME!

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  53. Hi guys - great discussion.

    A couple of clarifications; as soon as we had released the 5000 accounts we saw a spike in users logged in. But it quickly stabilized to about 600 peak users a day by the next day. Then with the next 5000 we are seeing another 600 peak users a day. So - the 1100-1200 is exactly as expected, and is s great volume for the testing.

    Second - we WANTED players that had never before played APB. The much faster TTK actually makes the game more fun - FOR NEW PLAYERS. Granted this will turn in to a religious debate pretty quick, but the new pace of the game actually makes it much more entertaining for those who gave up on it the first time.

    But yes - we realize this will be a heated debate going forward.

    We are also readying a patch that will address the NTEC primarily by reducing its effective distance. Zak has been working hard to come up with the right balance for all the guns. And we will look in to fixing the recoil bypass as well.

    Will make another main post when we are ready with this week's patch.

    Cheers / TechMech

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  54. The shotty I think sucks now, it is hard to even hit someone point blank if there is any lag, but it is beta so it isn't a problem.

    I'm also getting horrible FPS. I can run Crysis on high with good FPS, but for APB I get 40 FPS if im standing still or walking forward. and 20-30 FPS if im turning fast or in a fire fight. I've tried turning the graphics down to minimum, but I pretty much received the same FPS as I did on maximum settings :(.

    Game is still awesome though.

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  55. Me again. when you release this patch for the ntec and other weapons are you going to completely wipe our accounts clean of characters and EXP.

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  56. @Bjorn / TechMech
    You spoke that to you players who didn't play earlier APB are required. But after all such players will simply play, instead of to search for errors.

    It is assured that many of "new" players would subscribe on CBT just to play in game new to them. It is assured that many "new" players from EU and Russia (xUSSR) having seen pings > 300-400, have ceased to play. Here to you of 1200 active players from 10 000.

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  57. @P@dla/@Bjorn / TechMech Not all new players would just play, yes I could see what you are saying but I never played the first apb but I was looking forward to being a beta tester and finding bugs to help the game get going. Also yes they need old players to. Both sides are needed but I was thinking the same thing as the devs for the need for new people because they haven't had a feel for the old apb and could give good insight for when other new players will play the game and other things of that nature. Also I didn't get a invite which was kinda of disappointing because I usually have some really good points and ideas and able to find flaws. So Devs if ya see this Hit me up! haha shawtyswag13@gmail.com
    Also in the area of marketing when that time comes my dad is your man.
    Another thing I will be enrolled to "Full Sail" for music production so any of the music stuff I could essentially be a help.

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  58. for P@dla

    You may have misunderstood me. CCU is the peak number of simultaneous users at any moment. A Peak CCU of 1,200 actually practically means that we have seen about 8,400 unique players logging in during the last 24 hour period.

    So 84% of those that we let in to the beta are in fact playing the Beta every 24 hours. We don't expect that to continue long-term (that's an insanely high number) and we expect it will be dropping, but rest assured, even people from FAR away have been logging during in most 24 hour periods. Very few players so far have STOPPED playing and most are staying active daily.

    I will update if that changes.

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  59. @Bjorn / TechMech
    Ok, I am possible isn't right.
    Thanks for the answer.

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  60. Bjorn even though the 84% seems high, I think you should be carefull about the long term. Letting all these European people play with their lag, means they lose a lot of gunfights and have driving lag. In the short run I don't care about that, I can play like that for a week because I know and love the game... However the lag may be a bad visiting card for all these players clouding judgement of especially new players.
    Pls don't allow to many players who live far away from the server to keep good PR about the game. What are you thoughts about this?

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  61. @Ben
    So you want anyone from far away to not be able to connect? What about us Aussies? We get higher pings than Europeans do, yet the closest server to us would be the US West one.

    Besides that, it's never a good idea to restrict what people can do based on their region. If someone wants to connect to a slower server, it should be their option.

    Oh, and I still can't use the forums - due to what I posted above.

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  62. One good way to make sure everyone posts a report about bugs would be a easy way to find where to post them. I know right now the only major bug that I saw is the cooldown on the field supply.

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  63. I was forced to re-download APB, but now i have very good transfer 1.5MB/s to 2.0MB/s.
    I had to change the computer because the APB was too big requirements as my "grandfather".

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  64. Main issues in game:
    1.Aimbotter/Hackers will never be stopped.
    2.Ntec wayy to powerful
    3.and griefers... they are back!

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  65. Tech Mech plz talk more about the OB, we want to know when we aprox. will can play to apb!!!!

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  66. @TechMech

    "Second - we WANTED players that had never before played APB. The much faster TTK actually makes the game more fun - FOR NEW PLAYERS."

    How do you know it's more fun for new players to play with the faster TTK if they have not played APB before and can't know how it was before? :o

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  67. @raul

    nice! nailed it :]
    he right 100% right..
    i never played the game so i donno how it was befor so donno what changes or upgrades happen

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  68. @Raul

    Just take a look at the Wow forums. Nostalgia is the post powerful thing there. No matter how well they change stuff "it was all better before".

    The new players don't have memories from the first APB and therefore they are better to say if the new style is fun or not. Old players will only compare the new one to the old one.

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  69. So who has already played the beta of APB can not play this???

    I did not understand how it works for europeans!!!

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  70. VERY NICE POST.....I WANT MY KEY...PLEASE

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  71. i got a key last week, tierd of beta-testing. I'll wait for open beta:)

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  72. @Martin there's no more keys if im correct, they will activate your account when they want to.
    been actively on blogg fb forums since original shut down, like everyday.. its been what? 6 months already? -.- im a mess

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  73. @Kenneth those nostalgic changes have to deal with huge changes to games. Like SWG pre-upgrade and post-upgrade.

    Also, a new player can't say "This TTK is MORE fun than the previous TTK" because they don't know how the previous TTK was. You can't judge something like that till you experience it. So you have to experience both to know which one is truly more fun. Otherwise it is purely speculation.

    New players might find the current TTK fun, but might not realize that the previous TTK would actually be even more fun.
    Just like you might like strawberry flavored milkshake but won't know whether banana is better until you've tasted it. And trust me, banana is delicious.

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  74. To add to that. There are a ton of generic fps shooters out there where its all about rushing running around and the person to first spot, react and aim on the opposite player wins (Modern Warfare, Black Ops, Battlefield, BFBC, Homefront, Crysis etc.)
    APB was great because it was something new. It did things different and set itself apart from the pack.
    There is no need to make it like all the other games already out there.

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  75. Besides, in all the months I played APB i never heard a player say he hated the current TTK or he was going to stop playing because it wasn't fast enough. So I wonder where G1 get this data...

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  76. Comment for the paragraph "This IS a CLOSED BETA":

    When filling the beta test submission form, I actually wondered, why there wasn't any textbox for giving out answers to questions like "why you want to be a beta tester" or "have you ever beta tested before, if, then what games" etc...

    Usually the submissions have those kinds of queries.

    Having that information would easily help you to pick up right kind of persons to test the game. True, there's no way you'd be reading all the 100k submissions thoroughly, but a simple DB-query with keywords like "beta", "tester", "before", "work", "development", "software", "testing", etc, could give you satisfying results...

    Anyway; keep up the good work!

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  77. I'm with Raul on this. Why adjust the TTK before knowing what new players feel about the current situation? And yes, banana is pretty awesome.

    I don't know a single player that quit because of the TTK, most people quit because RTW never fixed anything to make the missions enjoyable. It's no fun having a VIP mission where someone sits on the roof for a half hour after blowing up barrels. I'm excited to try the new TTK, but if it's much faster than the old, I'm not sure I will continue to play. As Raul stated, there are so many first-reaction kill games, it was nice to have one where an exit and recovery strategy was useful.
    Though it could be good if it's only a slight adjustment. Might only add a slight skill-curve to exit and recovery strategies.

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  78. Yea the TTK was actually fun in the old beta, made u feel like u was strong but not to strong. Makes me feal human and not a dummy to be shot up.

    And yes old apb players should be the ones testing it first and there should be less euro/global people in the US server, that way we can test game as fully as possible, without lag.

    Please send me activation email, i've played in so many betas(trying to find worth playing till this comes our) that i'm getting sick of waiting. please send one to daniels.shawn80@gmail.com

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  79. Played apb in its euro beta too in th old one and it was LAGGY. I mean i could connect to it fine actually but with all the EU players it was horrible, but still fun^^.(Couldnt drive tho)

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  80. "Raul" clearly isn't omniscient, because I complained about the TTK in the old APB. It was utterly ridiculous.

    If I want to play as Wolverine, I'll play a Marvel game. If I want to play as a human being on gritty, realistic-looking city streets, I expect myself and the things I shoot at to die when metal slugs moving at thousands of feet per second are knocking chunks of gory flesh from their bodies.

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  81. What a joke, more fun for new players? HERP DERP IF PEOPLE WANTED LOW TTK FUN THEY CAN JUST GO PLAY COD.

    Way to completely FK the upgrades, with low ttk upgrades are useless, Why have them? Why bother with anything? Levels? HA. What a waste of time.

    And I thought Devs actually listened to players, its not just a religious thing. Low ttk DOESN'T work with this game. Fk you and your sh*t server.

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  82. You guys should open it for EU people too! there are a lot people here that would like to help finding bugs and such!

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  83. Hey, why I cna't login to the APB? (I have activated key)
    LOGIN FAILED!
    Account Login has Failed!
    Connection with the login server could not be established (error code 8).

    What i can to do? I don't know how fix that. It's only my problem?

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  84. @Bjorn / TechMech
    How long to us to wait for Russian Community at official forum APB? Many my compatriots badly know English language (and I too am forced to use the translator).

    At a Russian-speaking forum it would be easier to them to spread reports on errors, and moderators would inform them to you in a convenient format.

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  85. Since they are sending out beta keys do I still send in my email

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  86. Der Bjorn/Techmech.

    I put endless amount of hours into the original game. I asked support when you aquired the game, will I be able to get my account as it was? Designs, cars, weapons and rewards? Or will my hours of work to become among the highest and most equipped be of no value?

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  87. Hurry & send another wave! I'm tired of being left out just cuz I live in US-East

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  88. I would have to agree to with the people who says that you should have gotten better CB testers, I personally have been beta testing since 1999, i enjoy beta testing, and I enjoy being able to say I helped make the game what it is, and shouldnt there be an age limit to the beta application, little kids, are in it just for the fun. expirenced people like ot know that they helped, and made the game what it is.

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  89. Seriously... I have some bug that I want to report, but the bugreporter and the crashreporter are not working (and I'm not alone), so... what can we do ?

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  90. How do we report bugs? The ingame Bug Reporter always says there was an error. I gave up after writing several good bug reports only to have them error out.

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  91. still need to handle hacking issues as well. encountered more than im comfortable with the past couple days.

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  92. i play with my friend acount,and whene i whant to post a bug,the consol said ....error...give me my key nitrame1973@gmail.com

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  93. Ok thanks for the greatly detailed post about last week, im happy things were going fine, somewhat anyway lol. I hope to be one of those lucky players to finally see what this game is all about. I been looking forward to playing this, and when I hurd it was closed down I sat and asked myself "Why? A game like this houldnt be shut down so easly like this and plus it is a game in my opinion that can go toe to toe with EvE and win =/". But again im glad its back and this time free as well.

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  94. can anyone tell me when the server will be up again?

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  95. I don't understand how I did not get selected. I know the game and I work in Q.A. cmon man :D

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  96. I Have been waiting for this game a long time to, I am excited that the fact they are Making it better. just wish I could test the game out Tho I have played A lot of games and I no a problem on a game when I see one so I think I Would be a good tester for the game. smithy2kx@gmail.com

    System Specs

    windows 7 Home Premium
    AMD v140 proccesoor clock speed 2300 external clock 200
    Samsung 2gb ddr3 Ram Speed 1066mhz
    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250
    hdd hitachi 500
    Wireless 802.11b/g/n

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  97. Hey,

    If you guys need a serious beta tester, I would love to join. I follow a study Gamedesign, so i know how to give constructive feedback and what to look for.

    mathijsdammers@live.nl

    ReplyDelete

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