APB creator David Jones - also of Lemmings, GTA and Crackdown fame - has said inspiration for All Points Bulletin came more from Counter-Strike than MMOs.
The difference between MMOs like World of Warcraft and APB ”is in the core gameplay.” Getting it to last ten years is ”ultimately the goal” for developer Realtime Worlds. Due next year.
”The method I looked at, the kind of ideas I looked at was more like Counter-Strike,” Jones tells VideoGamer.com.
”There is a game which kept people playing for years and years and years, but from a very, very different perspective - just a great, great, great core combat game. I want more of what Counter-Strike did coupled with the social stuff that Counter-Strike didn’t do.”
”You couldn’t even have a clan in Counter-Strike for heaven’s sake. People used to improvise by adding it to the end of their names. They had to try and organise when to meet up, try and form groups, they effectively ran their own server then and invited players to it - all that stuff Counter-Strike players were doing, they had to try and do off their own back.”
”We’ve taken all that and said, make it from the beginning. You get all the social stuff you get from World of Warcraft. The difference is in the core gameplay. APB is a hell of a lot of fun to play, because I do play it day upon day upon day upon day upon day. We have progression as well – it’s visual,” explained studio boss Jones.
”We have leagues and stats and achievements. But at the end of the day, after playing World of Warcraft for a night I don’t sit back and go, wow! That was an amazing fight I was just in. It’s not really about an amazing fight. It’s about tactics and just getting through stuff.”
”I want people in APB to come out after a couple of hours and say, wow we had some amazing fights with that squad and that clan, and that guy was dominating tonight.”
Will APB stand for a decade? There are a lot of Counter-Strike fans out there who love shooting things after all… Is World of Warcraft devoid of ‘amazing fights’ and just about ‘getting through’ - if so, why are there over 11 million subscriptions?
APB is being released exclusively on PC early next year.
