Essentially, those older MMOs that have entered maintenance mode make consistent money for their respective studios. What they do with that money depends. SOE usually takes their subscription and micro-transaction money and reinvests it whereas EA pockets all of DAoC's money- which as Josh, one of Mythic's devs joked, "It keeps the lights on and keeps us in new teeshirts."
In a way, too much money given to a project makes it that much harder to "Succeed." I mean, start small, then build up if you can. Don't blow a tenth of a billion dollars hoping to make back a quarter of your investment in the first billing cycle.
Seriously, some of the car chase quests really frustrated me. I would just be trying to catch up for 10 minutes. When I got close enough we never did enough damage.
Also the last day I stopped playing the beta, a gang was on top of some building stacking up their kills. The only way on top of this building was to jump on top of barrels that could be knocked over, and then you had to wait for the barrels to respawn, but not before being picked off of course. It was rediculous.
It's true what a previous poster said about baby eating being. The game had a great concept but really, with a million dollar budget and so much time spent in production and secrecy, it's pathetic that this is what they came up with. Whoever is responsible deserves this shame because it could have been (should have been) so much more with some focus and listening to feedback. They should have just used another shooter's game engine, theirs was very bland and unbalanced.
FFS it was a shooting game with no head shots. In fact, it didn't matter where you shot someone because it all did the same damage. I was really hyped for this game and sorely disappointed, I'm glad I got into the open beta so I could see how bad it was before deciding on a purchase. I couldn't believe they wanted you to purchase time and only gave beta players a certain amount of hours to play the game. A flop at every turn.
Edit, I want to add more.
They definitely should have started off as a small sandbox game with a long open beta and added more content to keep you busy so the quests wouldn't immediately get repetitive. Perhaps crafting (guns, car parts, clothes), racing mini-games, casino mini-games, guild housing? There are so many other MMOs they could have borrowed ideas from, ideas that are successful, and turned into their own. Their customization was indeed awesome, that must have been where all their money went. It's like they knew what they had was crap, tried to keep it on the DL, and pushed it out anyways. What were they thinking?
I'm really fired up about this after learning of their ridiculous budget. Was APB a money laundering scheme???
Planetside had full-body hitboxes but it didn't feel like it detracted from that title due to the sheer amount of damage you could take before you died, and the fact that the game's inventory and skill system restricted healing, unlike APB's "lol, run around a corner" crap.
Planetside also had 100v100 epic battles, 10 man squads and 40 man platoons, and a bunch of other stuff that put everything but the character creator in APB to shame.
They should have just used another shooter's game engine, theirs was very bland and unbalanced.
It's Unreal Engine 3.
Game engine doesn't constitute a game's balance.
Nor necessarily how it feels. UT3 and Bioshock aren't bland. If you start cutting out post processing and other flavors, or just throw them in at the last second (IE: Bloom), then your game will turn with less of an impactful punch.
So we get stiff once in a while. So we have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? This is a free country, isn’t it? I can take my panda any place I want to. And if I wanna buy it a drink, that’s my business.
Good on you EA, free EA game for people who bought APB on Steam
Huzzah!
O_O
What about us poor people who bought it from the EA Online store?
Sigh...
From the same Twitter source, it was mentioned that the EA Online store was figuring out a way to do this (I posted about it a week ago). I don't know if they did though. You should look it up if you are an EA Online Store user though (unlike me)!
Crossposting this from the original APB thread (why are there two APB threads?)
An EA Customer Chat representative just gave me a free copy of Mass Effect 2 as a consolation prize for APB's collapse. He offered a copy of any currently released EA Store-available game, so that's what I picked. I would rather have had a credit for Dead Space 2 or NFS: Hot Pursuit, but this is pretty good.
Head to support.ea.com/chat and talk to a rep; if you can provide proof that you purchased APB (I uploaded a screenshot of the chat session and my Steam games list) you will be given a code to use in the EA Download Manager to add a game to your account.
Planetside had full-body hitboxes but it didn't feel like it detracted from that title due to the sheer amount of damage you could take before you died, and the fact that the game's inventory and skill system restricted healing, unlike APB's "lol, run around a corner" crap.
Planetside also had 100v100 epic battles, 10 man squads and 40 man platoons, and a bunch of other stuff that put everything but the character creator in APB to shame.
</nostalgia glasses>
The other thing is that, because these games tend to have stupidly close-quarters combat and accurate weapons, headshots just become some "aim 5 degrees higher for instant kills!" bullshit. Conversely, if you were actually fighting at such a range and with such an accuracy that aiming for the head ACTUALLY reduced your chances to hit, then you would get people bitching "wah wah wah people who aim for the chest get random headshots noskill nubzzzzz!!"
Crossposting this from the original APB thread (why are there two APB threads?)
An EA Customer Chat representative just gave me a free copy of Mass Effect 2 as a consolation prize for APB's collapse. He offered a copy of any currently released EA Store-available game, so that's what I picked. I would rather have had a credit for Dead Space 2 or NFS: Hot Pursuit, but this is pretty good.
Head to support.ea.com/chat and talk to a rep; if you can provide proof that you purchased APB (I uploaded a screenshot of the chat session and my Steam games list) you will be given a code to use in the EA Download Manager to add a game to your account.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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LibrarianThe face of liberal fascismRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
Just a heads up for everyone who bought APB:
EA will give you a free game, I can verify that this will also work for boxed copies bought in retail stores, because that is what I did.
I am from Europe and talked with the chat support linked above:
support.ea.com/chat
I just got Bad Company 2 for free.
If you have bought the game in a store you will have to initialize a remote viewing session and show them the verification email you got from APB when you created the account.
Might be nice to put this in the OP to get the info out to people.
I am not 100% sure, but it this the first time a major game publisher feels so bad about one of their product that they give out recent (and good) games to purchasers of that product?
Supposedly you can do it via the support page without talking to a rep, but there's no option for APB in the list of games. It was apparently there earlier today.
It's a new policy they just set up. I protested and got it escalated to the next highest in command (who actually spoke English it seemed). He explained that due to the volume of people returning the game, they decided they can not reward purchases made prior to 60 days after the server closure.
Anon the Felon on
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Jerkbotsome kind of hypnotistRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
Bought it retail.
Aargh.
I sent in a photo of the game CD key over the support site with the message i sent them already typed into it.
My APB account has the same details as my EA one, so hopefully they still have that data.
It's a new policy they just set up. I protested and got it escalated to the next highest in command (who actually spoke English it seemed). He explained that due to the volume of people returning the game, they decided they can not reward purchases made prior to 60 days after the server closure.
Yea, just finished talking to one of their chat reps and anyone who didn't buy it after 7/16 is now screwed as of today. Of course, I figured they'd ask if I contacted the company I bought it from first and went to them on Friday, only heard from them today, leaving me SOL. Looks like EA went from looking classy to being a bunch of silly geese in the span of a few hours.
Zomboy on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
You kinda can't blame them though. I mean, if they allowed every single return, it'd cost them a lot of money.
Basically it could be worse; they could've stopped giving out refunds period. I'm not trying to shill EA or anything but at least they're doing what they can within reason.
Game was out for 79 days; limiting compensation to purchases within the last 60 days is snubbing early adopters. It sounds reasonable, and it would be if it were a game that'd been out for a year or something. This way they get to look reasonable while stiffing what is sure to be a very high percentage of the game's owners.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
When you measure the game's life in days it makes it sound even worse.
Henroid on
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LibrarianThe face of liberal fascismRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
I bought the game on launch day, so if they really set up that new policy they must have changed it about 1 hour after I got the free game.
What makes this even more of a silly geese move by EA, is that I am willing to bet about 90% of APB`s player base either bought the game at launch or in the couple of days following that, before the reviews were out.
I bought the game on launch day, so if they really set up that new policy they must have changed it about 1 hour after I got the free game.
What makes this even more of a silly geese move by EA, is that I am willing to bet about 90% of APB`s player base either bought the game at launch or in the couple of days following that, before the reviews were out.
This is what I mean when I say EA's move looks reasonable but is actually designed to screw most of APB's players. They'll never say it, but I think it's a reasonable guess to say that somewhere between two thirds and three fourths of people who bought the game did so in it's first 19 days.
I can understand where they are coming from and even though i would like a free game etc (may still be able to get one idk) I feel like I got my moneys worth since I had fun and played through my 50 hrs and then some. Most other games you get between 6-20 hrs so that's not really bad at all. But it still stands that I can't "replay" the game which is a sore point.
You can probably thank 4chan and a few other sites, at least in part, for the 60 days restriction. /v/ and other places have been using screenshots people have made from purchases back in July to defaud EA of free copies of games en masse.
korodullin on
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
Yeah asking for a screenshot as proof of purchase was a silly decision on EA's part.
Yeah...disappointed that I preordered and can't get the credit for the game. I'll always have the warm memories of the KTTC event to tide me over though, right?
Chases Street Demons on
"Sometimes things aren't complicated," I said. "You just have to be willing to accept the absolute corruption of everybody involved."
I wonder if there is a way to contact Valve/Steam and get a copy of my purchase receipt e-mail sent to me. I think I deleted the one I got when I bought the game.
Posts
In a way, too much money given to a project makes it that much harder to "Succeed." I mean, start small, then build up if you can. Don't blow a tenth of a billion dollars hoping to make back a quarter of your investment in the first billing cycle.
Also the last day I stopped playing the beta, a gang was on top of some building stacking up their kills. The only way on top of this building was to jump on top of barrels that could be knocked over, and then you had to wait for the barrels to respawn, but not before being picked off of course. It was rediculous.
It's true what a previous poster said about baby eating being. The game had a great concept but really, with a million dollar budget and so much time spent in production and secrecy, it's pathetic that this is what they came up with. Whoever is responsible deserves this shame because it could have been (should have been) so much more with some focus and listening to feedback. They should have just used another shooter's game engine, theirs was very bland and unbalanced.
FFS it was a shooting game with no head shots. In fact, it didn't matter where you shot someone because it all did the same damage. I was really hyped for this game and sorely disappointed, I'm glad I got into the open beta so I could see how bad it was before deciding on a purchase. I couldn't believe they wanted you to purchase time and only gave beta players a certain amount of hours to play the game. A flop at every turn.
Edit, I want to add more.
They definitely should have started off as a small sandbox game with a long open beta and added more content to keep you busy so the quests wouldn't immediately get repetitive. Perhaps crafting (guns, car parts, clothes), racing mini-games, casino mini-games, guild housing? There are so many other MMOs they could have borrowed ideas from, ideas that are successful, and turned into their own. Their customization was indeed awesome, that must have been where all their money went. It's like they knew what they had was crap, tried to keep it on the DL, and pushed it out anyways. What were they thinking?
I'm really fired up about this after learning of their ridiculous budget. Was APB a money laundering scheme???
Planetside also had 100v100 epic battles, 10 man squads and 40 man platoons, and a bunch of other stuff that put everything but the character creator in APB to shame.
</nostalgia glasses>
It's Unreal Engine 3.
Game engine doesn't constitute a game's balance.
Nor necessarily how it feels. UT3 and Bioshock aren't bland. If you start cutting out post processing and other flavors, or just throw them in at the last second (IE: Bloom), then your game will turn with less of an impactful punch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5J-qc3zBo4
O_O
What about us poor people who bought it from the EA Online store?
Sigh...
How will that work? Available already or something to come?
From the same Twitter source, it was mentioned that the EA Online store was figuring out a way to do this (I posted about it a week ago). I don't know if they did though. You should look it up if you are an EA Online Store user though (unlike me)!
An EA Customer Chat representative just gave me a free copy of Mass Effect 2 as a consolation prize for APB's collapse. He offered a copy of any currently released EA Store-available game, so that's what I picked. I would rather have had a credit for Dead Space 2 or NFS: Hot Pursuit, but this is pretty good.
Head to support.ea.com/chat and talk to a rep; if you can provide proof that you purchased APB (I uploaded a screenshot of the chat session and my Steam games list) you will be given a code to use in the EA Download Manager to add a game to your account.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
The other thing is that, because these games tend to have stupidly close-quarters combat and accurate weapons, headshots just become some "aim 5 degrees higher for instant kills!" bullshit. Conversely, if you were actually fighting at such a range and with such an accuracy that aiming for the head ACTUALLY reduced your chances to hit, then you would get people bitching "wah wah wah people who aim for the chest get random headshots noskill nubzzzzz!!"
It's really a stupid mechanic, in my opinion.
Damn, that's really decent of them.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
EA will give you a free game, I can verify that this will also work for boxed copies bought in retail stores, because that is what I did.
I am from Europe and talked with the chat support linked above:
support.ea.com/chat
I just got Bad Company 2 for free.
If you have bought the game in a store you will have to initialize a remote viewing session and show them the verification email you got from APB when you created the account.
Might be nice to put this in the OP to get the info out to people.
This is a really cool move from EA.
...Kind of lame...
Just looked it up; it came out on June 29th and I bought it on July 4th. You should go back to support and smack them around a bit.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Aargh.
I sent in a photo of the game CD key over the support site with the message i sent them already typed into it.
My APB account has the same details as my EA one, so hopefully they still have that data.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Why is that bad for EA then?
I never asked for this!
I think he means bad move that they're limiting retail returns (see Anon's post).
Yea, just finished talking to one of their chat reps and anyone who didn't buy it after 7/16 is now screwed as of today. Of course, I figured they'd ask if I contacted the company I bought it from first and went to them on Friday, only heard from them today, leaving me SOL. Looks like EA went from looking classy to being a bunch of silly geese in the span of a few hours.
Basically it could be worse; they could've stopped giving out refunds period. I'm not trying to shill EA or anything but at least they're doing what they can within reason.
I'm glad I got in early.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
What makes this even more of a silly geese move by EA, is that I am willing to bet about 90% of APB`s player base either bought the game at launch or in the couple of days following that, before the reviews were out.
This is what I mean when I say EA's move looks reasonable but is actually designed to screw most of APB's players. They'll never say it, but I think it's a reasonable guess to say that somewhere between two thirds and three fourths of people who bought the game did so in it's first 19 days.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Especially when I have a perfectly good license key to give them.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)