APB's Dave Jones expected mediocre reviews

Most MMOs can be considered incredibly shallow: kill ten rats, collect ten flowers, bring this envelope to this guy, click resource nodes for hours then click a craft button for more hours, etc.

Granted, however, the kinds of MMOs I mentioned above have a wide variety of shallow tasks :P.

When I did the beta, it was groups of 4 or 5 versus about the same. (not saying the game was without its issues but it's definitely not just one on one)

APB is marketed as a shooter, not an MMO/MMOFPS, thus you are only right to expect what would be expected from a shooter. Shallow missions? Excuse me, but most shooters throw you in a map with several other players, offering you 4 - 5 "mission" options (CTF etc) and leaving the players to entertain themselves. APB does the same - you are not supposed to have fun bringing objective A to location B, you are supposed to have fun fighting the opposition who tries to prevent it. You are not supposed to have fun spraying the wall, you are supposed to have fun fighting the enemy team while trying to get the objective. In UT, you are not supposed to have fun carrying the flag from one place to another - you are supposed to have fun fighting and avoiding the opposition while moving the flag.

As for the combat being bad, I disagree. I prefer the combat to be based around cover and to have no headshots, just like in APB. Of course, hardcore shooter fans would be uncomfortable with the radically different approach APB takes on combat, and perhaps this is what he means by "learning curve".

I've seen as high as 8v8, and that gets really really crazy. The game isn't meant to be played solo, you're meant to have a group. If you play by yourself it's your own fault, because the match making system will keep you matched against 1.

And I could care less what a review or reviewer says about the game. It's the most fun game I've played in years, and I've found myself a new home. I plan to play it for a very long time.

The game has it's flaws, there are many, but most of them are small and quite fixable. Give the game a little time to get polished, because NO MMO (using the term loosely) is ever quite finished when it's released. That includes everyone's precious WoW. I believe the game to be a real contender, and in the coming months it's only going to get better.

I am a huge fan of APB. The pc fps market has tanked. The games simply do not try to do anything new. They are boring and uninspired. APB is at the heart of a creative design that I support. Who knows what could be next. I am enjoying this for now though!

It doesn't matter whether you can play in tiny groups or not. The point I was making was that even though there are up to 99 other people in a district with you (I'd guess 50 of them are in the opposing facion), you can still only fight those who are in a mission with you. What is the point of having so many people in the same zone other than for aesthetic purposes? You couldn't turn PVP into any more of a joke if you tried.

As far as combat is concerned, I expect a lot more from a shooter than what this game to offer. What they have is a bunch of weapons that, when it comes down to it, all work in a very similar, casual friendly, simplistic way. The combat does not have any depth whatsoever, it does not entertain me as an MMO player and as an experienced FPS player I find it pathetically laughable.

The truth is, this game simply fails to deliver on all fronts that really matter when you're trying to market it as a shooter and not a social mmo for 14 year old gangsta wannabes. The only thing it has going for it is its whole customization system. If you're having fun with it now, I'm happy for you, but get back to me in 2-3 months and tell me doing the same missions over and over again with this disastrously bad combat system is still fun...

They've talked about Chaos districts, where everyone can kill each other. If you've never played the game, it may sound good. But if you've played it at all, you'll know how crazy that is. It'd be completely unplayable with everyone just killing each other.

I already said that the missions are not supposed to entertain you, its the pvp - the same way people managed to play Counter Strike's de_dust over and over and over again for months and even years (I know people like that). As for the other players in the district having no effect on you, you are wrong - nothing sucks more than having someone outside your mission get in the vehicle you are taking cover behind (which happened to me a few times in the beta), or running towards your objective and suddenly hearing intense fire that makes you think "Oh sh3t, I'll die in a second", then noticing that it is those 4 crims on the roof above that are fighting enforcers outside your mission. You sometimes get tips too - while wondering how to reach that enemy player, an outsider has gotten to him once or twice, accidentally showing me the route.

Of course, all of these effects are mostly cosmetic and rarely affect your mission. But tell me, how often do the 10k players on your WoW server use you for something more than chatting and grouping?

Missions = PVP. The only PVP in this game.

I don't like Counter Strike, I only played it for a few weeks about 10 years ago to see what the fuss was all about, but what I can tell you from my limited experience with this game is that it is incomparably more complex when it comes to weapon handling, movement, and aiming than APB. If you can't see the difference between the "combat system" they have in CS (or in any other popular FPS game) and APB, then I really don't know what to tell you. Like I said, have fun with the game, for however long its "PVP" is going to keep you interested.

Lastly, I don't play WoW, but I suppose that if I did, I'd be playing on a PVP server, and if some player from an opposing faction saw me fighting someone/something on a roof of a building, he could climb up there and not only look but -- and here's a real shocker -- attack me if he felt like attacking me at that particular moment. That's called interaction between players (specific to PVP games in this case), and that is what multiplayer games are all about.

It will go F2P within 2 months tops.

APB offers you developer - hosted servers and uses the subscription to pay for them. COD uses player hosted lame soundpack weird mod servers and makes the hosts pay for them. The cost is the same, only that the latter has 1 player or clan paying for all the others on their server, while APB spreads it out.

Ok... but what about a game like MAG (I've never played it) for PS3. There is no subscription, but it has 200 vs 200 player maps. As far as I know, nobody pays anything. I admit, I'm really not a FPS player. When I have played them, though, I was never aware of a payment system. I also usually play them at a friends house on a PS3 or 360.

Regardless of if a clan/person hosts a server, or if the devs are hosting it, the majority of players don't pay a thing. I doubt most of them even think about paying when they pick up a FPS for any platform. If this was F2P I'm positive more people would play it, give it a chance, and give them more time to work out the kinks.

With the subscription model, if the game is mediocre, people are going to move on or simply not bother. True MMOs have trouble surviving due to problems in game. If this game is having problems it will be much easier to move on since people can play whatever FPS they want for free.

Global Agenda went free because the majority of people felt that it should be free. Urban Monkey is probably right, it will go F2P. Not sure about 2 months, but I'm almost positive they will have to at some point.