If one man’s loss is another man’s gain, then perhaps one company’s dead MMO is a chance for another to bolster its subscriber base?
Hi-Rez Studios, in recognition of All Points Bulletin‘s untimely demise, has written an open letter to the Shooter/MMO community, letting it know that they’re ready to welcome refugees with open arms:
The last few years have been rough for many fans of the Shooter/MMO genre.
Several innovative game titles with great communities have folded as they sought to bring together those of us who enjoy the fast-action, intense pace of a shooter, but also the character progression and persistence offered by MMOs.
Today, we mourn our latest fallen colleague, APB. In making APB, Realtime Worlds had a bold vision to make an MMO devoid of traditional tab-targeting, cast bars, and die-roll combat. We honor their effort and innovation, and greatly mourn the game’s closing.
Sadly, the APB server shutdown leaves their entire community with nothing to shoot or blow up tonight!
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We at Hi-Rez Studios believe strongly in the Shooter/MMO genre. We celebrate and thank all developers advancing innovative Shooter/MMO concepts, as well as the fans that dedicate their time to playing and supporting these games.
Todd Harris
Executive Producer, Global Agenda
Far from having a cannibalistic attitude towards the affair, though, the developer is offering a hefty discount when purchasing fellow Shooter hybrid, Global Agenda, through their own website. Now, I’m not sure how many APB players we have around the Lore Hound community, but it should take the sting out of paying for all that extra “action” time for anyone who did. But even if you didn’t, there’s nothing in the language of the letter that limits the sale to former cops and robbers.
In fact, it seems that anyone can take advantage of it by either clicking the link in the paragraph above, or navigating to the main site through one of the banners we have posted here on Lore Hound. Then enter the code “LongLiveShooterMMOs” at checkout to receive 30% off now through September 24th. Since Hi-Rez dropped the idea of subscription fees a few months ago, that means all you’re doing is making a one-time purchase for about 20.99 USD, with similar discounts in European countries.
Huh, as it turns out, one company’s loss is everyone‘s gain.
I played APB and still had account time when the severs went down. However, I’ve tried Global Agenda on several occasions and just can’t get into it. I’ll just stick with Halo Reach instead.
GA isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, so I highly recomend getting the trail first, and then going from there. I cannot stress enough that this isn’ tWoW. It’s a shooter game with a side of MMORPG, but it’s a shooter none the less. If you suck at FPS games, you will not enjoy your stay.
The basics of the game, along with some decent starting gear, are covered fairly well in a big open world PvE area. I’d do the quests for the loot, if nothing more, though the big dude in the login screen is the boss for the end of the open zone quest chain, and he is cool to fight.
There is a dungeon crawl PvE system, which can be pretty tough and definetly rewards team work, but the PvP is where the game shines, and is unlocked at level 10 (to let you get geared up a bit and get you used to the shooting). Very fast, very fluid, with a TTK of about 2-7 seconds depending on both target and weapon, and no headshots. No one hit kills either, unless it’s an enviromental harzard (like a giant laser beam or something).
All the game types are objective based, and involve standing on a big red circle to win, with the exceptions of Control, where you need to have the team standing on 2/3 circles to get points to win, and Demolitions, which is sort of like reverse CTF. I need to get a big mech suit bomb thing into your base for points, and keep yours out. Deathmatching is fun, i know, but doesn’t really do much unless you can keep a lot of people tied up away from what your team is trying to do.
Winding down, try the trial. It’s free, and if you don’t like it, no skin off your nose and no money out of your pocket.