GamersFirst gearing up for more APB testing invites, looking toward open beta

Open beta time is approaching for APB Reloaded, and GamersFirst's Bjorn Book-Larsson is back with his weekly blog post to give us all the juicy details. It seems that GamersFirst devs are working overtime to squash a number of pesky bugs in the 1.5.0 version of the game. As soon as they're finished, 1.5.0 will be made available to the game's 25,000 closed beta testers, followed by subsequent releases for the EU servers, a mass invite for another 25,000 closed beta testers, and then an invite for the remainder of closed beta applicants.

If all of this goes off without a hitch, testers will be granted a temporary premium account to poke and prod at its associated functionality, after which GamersFirst will enable monetized content. After that, "if there are still no major issues, then we will open up the floodgates and formally go into open beta," Book-Larsson explains.

While that's a lot of "ifs," the takeaway is that APB Reloaded's official release is drawing steadily closer. Book-Larsson notes that the team expects to "be in monetized open beta until August" and will be iterating on quite a bit of new content throughout the process.

Reader Comments (14)

Let me just say...

The game feels exactly the same.

@Grumms Was about to say exactly the same thing. Nothing much has changed, not yet at least.

@Grumms

I lasted about 3 hours in closed beta and then uninstalled.

You definitely don't need a vivid imagination to see why the first rendition failed.

Actually, it's not the same, I loved the previous game. This one is a lot, lot grindier (you used to be able to get any item in less than a day if you knew what contact to max, most people have been unable to reach the high-end cars in over a month in this version), and it also lags a lot more. For me, unplayable, at least until they release the EU servers, though there have been people sitting on top of the data centers and experiencing ridiculous latency.

I was in the first beta test for this game and it was *ok* but I can see why it would have turned many off. I got an invite to the second beta and accepted it to see if anything had changed... then I got an email that I was accepted for the SWTOR beta.

Sorry APB...

@Arkanaloth
>:P I hate you.... I want a SWTOR invite!!

The game is still much the same at its core right now.

However, there are very big changes in store for Open Beta... don't judge the game based on what you see in the CB.

@Zyrusticae

Sounds familiar...

@Zyrusticae It's really hard to not judge a game based on open beta when they are talking about open beta already. This game lags, there are all sorts of issues with playability like tutorial pop ups that cover part of the screen and there's no "X" or "next" screen to move it or get rid of it. There is rampant cheating that i've encountered, heard others complaining about and seen video of. I've had people who are over a street away kill me in about 4 shots fired.

I still have the game installed but i quit the closed beta because these cheating antics were in the other version too so they've done nothing so far to stop it. Open beta they will ignore the elephant in the room as well and when it goes live cheating will still be rampant. People will leave except cheaters then they will leave, game will die.

@Suplyndmnd graarrr I meant hard to not judge a game based on closed beta..... clooooosed beta.

When I played in CB, it felt like they just reworked the game so they could stick a "pay to win" style micro-transaction store in it. APB was/is a game that cant be fixed by just moving some numbers around; its a game that practically needs to be redesigned from the ground up. Gamersfirst is just converting it to a pay to win style micro-transaction MMO so they can get some 12-year-olds to spend all of their parents' money on weapons and gear that would take other players months to grind.

I'm not really sure why anyone thought the game would be VASTLY different. They aren't building a new game here, they are just tweaking an already built game.

They are patching some of the major holes such as match making, driving (which I don't think was so bad to begin with) and performance. Hopefully they'll fix some of the other MAJOR flaws; such as gun mods, variety in missions, and give me the damn zombie district already! :).

The game was brilliant before, but it did have it's share of major problems that was keeping it back from being truly enjoyable. I hope GF does a good job of patching up some of those flaws.

What are the improvements that are going to make this version not suck like it did originally?

Also, does any one else find it odd for them to talk about entering a "monetized beta?" When it comes to MMOs, doesn't "monetized beta" typically mean the same thing as "Live?" Especially since it would be an open beta, I don't see how that's not the same as going live, except that they're sort of giving themselves an excuse for poor quality by saying "it's still just beta."

I loved the character customization in APB, but apart from that I didn't see much game to be had. Some one please help me and explain how this new version is going to be much better.

is "mass invite" for applicants meaning that those with their key + app in will get their invite? All of us? Sooo happy.

GamersFirst gearing up for more APB testing invites, looking toward open beta

Reader Comments (14)

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 11:05AM Grumms said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 11:26AM Mendus said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 11:29AM Apakal said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 12:06PM kasapina said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 11:36AM Arkanaloth said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 1:42PM Thasri said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 1:02PM Zyrusticae said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 1:07PM Apakal said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 2:43PM Suplyndmnd said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 2:45PM Suplyndmnd said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 2:41PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 11th 2011 5:30PM ultimateq said

Posted: Apr 12th 2011 6:36AM Mystal said

Posted: Apr 17th 2011 10:48AM (Unverified) said

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