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All Points Bulletin still set for consoles, but in a different form
The longstanding search for a console MMO is ongoing, with All Points Bulletin coming up as one of the bigger hopes for the near future. It's been announced, however, that while the game is still slated for consoles, it's not going to be ported straight over from the PC version. That's the word from EJ Moreland, lead designer, who recently went on record saying that as the development of the game progressed, it became more and more obvious that the game wouldn't work as a straight port of the PC version. Before anyone throws up their hands in despair, however, the game is still planned for release on consoles. There's no specific timetable for it, as the team chose to focus on the PC version first, but it is still slated for release. As to how the game will be different, the only clue is the cryptic explanation that it will be in a form more suited to console play. What precisely that means is unclear, but every All Points Bulletin fan can only hope that the game will still hold on to its unique multiplayer experience.
Massively interviews All Points Bulletin's Chris Collins and EJ Moreland
If you're anywhere as excited as us for All Points Bulletin you'll be happy to know we had the chance to ask Lead Designer EJ Moreland and Community Manager Chris Collins a bevy of questions, which they answered with supreme openness. We've got the scoop on all sorts of topics, from Realtime Worlds' stance on community interaction, whether or not the game will have official forums, content updates post-launch and plenty more. We hope you enjoy reading the interview as much as we did conducting it!
All Points Bulletin video podcast answers questions from game's fans
The latest All Points Bulletin video podcast is a Q&A where Realtime Worlds devs field questions from fans of the upcoming urban crime title. Lead Gameplay Designer Jesse Knapp and Lead Designer EJ Moreland discuss a wide range of topics this week. They go into the possibility of releasing browser versions of the editors and letting players experiment with APB's extensive customization system -- although this won't be something we'll see at release. The APB devs also explain the limitations of layers in customizing your character's look, the next wave of beta invites (January), and reaffirm they're still looking at a Spring 2010 launch. The video Q&A is also sprinkled with bits of footage showing things such as the damage states of vehicles (no broken glass though) and how layers can be used to alter your character's appearance. Stick with us past the jump for embedded footage of All Points Bulletin's 15th video podcast.
All Points Bulletin podcast #12 delivers community Q&A
All Points Bulletin's 12th video podcast sees the conclusion of the Mark Rein walkthrough and an informative Q&A with the game's design lead, EJ Moreland. Some of the questions are things we already knew but bore repeating, like that the game is going to be PC only for its first release.There's new information in there, too. Like the fact that a car you design cannot be stolen from you while driving it, unlike a car you steal from a pedestrian. There's also talk about player and clan housing as future additions to the game.We think the video podcasts are a great way to clear the air of any misconceptions while simultaneously giving the community a chance to meet the people designing the game they so very much want to play. So hopefully we'll be seeing more of these in the coming weeks leading up to wider beta and eventually, launch.Check out the video after the break.
All Points Bulletin video podcast fields questions from the fans
The team at Realtime Worlds has been releasing a series of video podcasts about All Points Bulletin, their upcoming urban crime MMO. The term "MMO" isn't an exact fit for this game though, as anyone who's been following our coverage of APB will have noted. In fact, the game is so different that this latest APB podcast is basically a Q&A with Design Lead EJ Moreland. He answers a barrage of questions, ranging from the game's business model to whether or not we should expect a console release. In addition to all that, Moreland drops some info about All Points Bulletin's current state of development, and when beta testing is expected to begin. For those of you wanting to see a little more of the game, the video also gives us a look at emotes, explained by Senior Animator Ben Stanton, who shows off some avatar dance moves and taunts along the lines of bird flips. He also says that emotes will be gender specific, so the ladies will get a slightly different array of emotes than the guys. We've got an HD embed of the video for you, so stick with us after the jump.
All Points Bulletin players to help determine game's evolution
The team at Massively is pretty happy to see that Realtime Worlds has broken radio silence with All Points Bulletin, first with the E3 2009 announcement and a video podcast, and now with some in-depth interviews about the urban crime game. Gamasutra's Christian Nutt recently spoke with APB lead designer EJ Moreland about some of the elements that could make this game different from most anything else presently on the market. The game is clearly a departure from some of the conventions and game mechanics typical of an MMO. The game's emphasis is on dynamic action; Moreland describes APB as "an online action game with persistence." And, of course, there's that incredible potential for customization they've shown off.
All Points Bulletin video podcast shows off scope of customization
Things were very quiet on the All Points Bulletin front for quite some time, but now we're seeing why. Realtime Worlds has been busy, and since E3 2009 the APB team at Realtime Worlds has revealed a ton of info about their upcoming game. Massively interviewed APB lead designer EJ Moreland who gave us some perspective on what the title will be like, but we're always looking out for more info. On that note, the All Points Bulletin game site revamp was accompanied by a new series of video podcasts, the second of which is now out. This second All Points Bulletin video podcast "E3 and Beyond" has Chris "Deum" Collins from the APB community team speaking with lead gameplay designer Jesse Knapp about the game's extensive customization options, and is in two parts. Actually it's largely a montage of the E3 customization videos with commentary from the APB devs, where they answer questions posed to them by the game's fans. It's a great look at what's possible in the game and we highly recommend you give it a look. However, if that's not enough to get you to check it out, we've got two words for you: Suicide Girls. We've got YouTube embeds of both parts for you below the cut. Have a look:
Impressions: APB
Realtime Worlds has an extremely ambitious plan to bring an enormous sandbox world full of customization to the PC player at home, and creative director Dave Jones is calling APB "The game he wanted Grand Theft Auto to be." Although we imagine those 1997-era graphics and the top-down view would have limited it somewhat. They've more than made up for that in this new game, which has some pretty slick built-in design tools .. but no cohesive story.That's one of the things that causes the hair on the back of our necks to rise, and probably those of the marketing team as well. When asked about the game, Jones said "Well, we don't really have an overarching story." In fact, their website's FAQ will tell you, "What will the outcome be? The great thing is, we don't know." We don't know either. But if you want to find out what we do know about the game, head beyond the break and give it a peep. Here's a teaser: They could release this tomorrow as Back Alley Tattoo Artist and it would clean up.%Gallery-65497%
Interview: EJ Moreland, lead designer of APB
APB was probably one of the most impressive games we didn't actually see played at E3 -- while Realtime Worlds didn't have any actual gameplay to show off, they did have a nice demo session (in a booth guarded by these two tattooed ladies -- don't worry, EJ's wife, we asked him to pose for this one) where they talked about how their persistent MMO shooter will combine emergent cops-and-robbers gameplay with an extremely impressive level of customization.After the demo session, lead designer EJ Moreland sat down with us, and cleared up most of the wanted bounties we still had on the game: what's advancement like? How is the game using Last.fm? And just how will they balance out the ad-hoc gameplay of criminals committing crimes and enforcers catching them with the usual MMO process of character advancement? Read on for more.%Gallery-65497%
