APB impressions from Joystiq at GDC

It's because PS3 doesn't have a big enough market for MMO players and the Xbox 360 is too restricted for a MMO to start off on it alone.

I dont really see this as a GTA mmo because GTA had tons of pve content and from what I have read from interviews APB has hardly any pve content
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/realtime-worlds-david-jones-interview?page=2

Eurogamer: Are there goals for the more solo, casual player? You don't really have player-versus-environment content at all.

David Jones: We don't as such, we do a little bit for criminals because they can just ram-raid shops, steal stuff, steal cars, sell them, mug pedestrians. For example, a good solo one, if somebody plays the game a lot and they like solo, we have a league for the most damage done in the day. Being in a group's not a benefit for that one.

We even have fashion leagues, which is how many sales you've had on the trading house because you're very creative. And we reward that.

@Dopamin can I use your beta access please?

What are you talking about?

yeah.. what the heck ARE you talking about?

I think we have a miscomment. He's talking about this post here:

http://www.massively.com/2010/03/15/omniverse-games-announces-closed-beta-of-excalibur-online/

And... yeah... he's right. In that picture, the artwork in the upper left is entirely from Age of Conan.

Heaven forbid, it's a game that relies on skill! It is an MMO.

MMO = Massively Multiplayer Online

I think 100 people per district and I believe 100k people per server constitutes being massive.

And if you count Rank as player level, then it has RPG elements too. So it is in fact an MMORPG.

You can't shoot anyone who is not matched against you, the other 99,998 people might as well be in a chat room. Rank is irrelevant when you are always matched against someone of the same rank, with the same items. There is no advancement, just endless grinding of PVP with no result.

Topdeck, sounds like have a very rigid view of what an MMO is. Secondly the lack of progression you talk about....it's there you just got to use your skills, not your avatar's buffed level.

Sounds like you are scared of a fair fight.

Cray, you sound like a typical FPS braggard. I understand that the game takes skill. But every shooter takes skill. You can't call your shooter an MMO because your character "levels up" if the is no progression beyond the first 30 minutes of gameplay. Its not that your character doesn't get better, the game doesn't. Nothing changes. You press 'y' and you are matched up against another person or another team of persons, then you play some counterstrike variant for a few minutes. Repeat. That is not an MMO.

Last time I checked, MMO and RPG do not mean the same thing. Who says MMOs and Third Person Shooters are Mutually Exclusive. Is there some neckbeard god-king that declares with a nasally voice on a Doritos-stained face that "NO ALL MMOS MUST BE RPGS, IF ITS NOT A RPG ITS NOT A MMO"? I think we'll all agree that APB is not a MMORPG, however, it is shaping up to be a MMOTPS, which, as you'll notice, is still a MMO.

So Ian, are you saying that massively.com should start covering MAG and Call of Duty? After all, these games are also shooters in which your character gains rank? Actually MAG also includes skills you can improve, it is even more of an MMO!

Massively has covered MAG pretty extensively. Call of Duty doesn't support enough players in a match to really be called massively-multiplayer.

I would agree that some of the definitions can be pretty loose, as I've played a number of Asian "MMOs", featured on this site, that were just chatrooms or matchmaking UIs with 5-player instances.