I’ve been playing it since launch. It has a lot of flaws, but still manages to be a lot of fun. The key to the game is playing with good teammates, there are a LOT of jerks playing it.
I’m on a business trip right now, but when I get back, I’d be interested in meeting up with anyone here who plays it on the mean streets of San Paro.
I was kind of wondering when a thread about this would show up. I’ve been considering starting it myself.
I just bought the game yesterday, spent about 3 hours in the action districts so far. There are definitely things that could stand improvement, but I am just loving APB so far. The core concept is excellent, and I’ve been having an exceptionally good time in game. There are very few game experiences as satisfying as leaning out the passenger side window of your getaway car, riddling your pursuer’s ride until it catches fire, and watching him bail out before the car explodes while your driver keeps tearing ass down the road.
There are definitely a lot of jerks playing it, though. Earlier today my friend and I were driving around between missions, and we got caught by a couple of enforcer griefers. One was in a large dump truck and the other was in a quicker custom SUV. They kept pinning us and driving our vehicles into the wall, setting them on fire and forcing us to jump clear. We couldn’t retaliate; if you’re not in a mission, you can’t shoot other players, and we couldn’t find a ride large enough to fight back against the dump truck. Eventually we just ran into a building complex and they left us alone.
That’s the main problem with pure PVP games. PVPers are a disgusting breed. Oh, sure, you get the occasional noble warrior who lives by a code of honor, and they’re worthy of respect, but for the most part PVPers are little more than scum. I love PVP games, though, so what that says about me… 
I’m loving it, though. I can’t get enough of driving through the city and encountering random hotspots of sheer chaos, with criminals and enforcers duking it out and cars strewn everywhere. They just need to refine some of the details, but as far as I’m concerned they did multiplayer Grand Theft Auto right.
Yeah, the griefers and other freaks can really dampen the mood. My policy is to just get away from them as soon as possible. I play an enforcer and I agree the chaos is just awesome. You’ll come around a corner and there is an insane running gun battle car chase going on. At its best, the game is like the gun battle from the movie Heat (where I took my character’s look).
One gripe is that there are too many high powered weapons available for low level players who put some cash together. I think that weapons should stay locked to a player until s/he is high enough level. It seems like every low level criminal has a grenade launcher.
I haven’t found a grenade launcher yet (still only rating 47), but I have started amassing a decent armory. I’m really looking forward to obtaining an anti-vehicle gun, though; after getting trashed by one during an escape mission, I’ll gladly restrict myself to a machine pistol in close-combat fighting if it means I can use one of those babies.
Personally, I’m fairly happy with having wide access right at the beginning. While there is a lot to be said for gradually unlocking weapons and gear as a means of keeping player interest, shooters are primarily about skill rather than gear, except as far as making sure you’re using the right gear for the job. Planetside was the same; you could use nearly any weapon right off the bat. What mattered was whether you were any good at using it.
I’m happy to say APB’s matchmaking service is good at not making me feel outclassed, either. I had an excellent 1v1 series of missions with an enforcer who was about my equal in skill. My tasks were to capture certain areas, and the last one I had to actually hold for the entire length of the mission (or until one of us lost all our lives). We had a really neat deathmatch, fighting for control of the last point which was in the patio of a two-story building with balconies all around. Unfortunately for him, he was great practice for my rifle skills, and by the end I had managed to completely lock down the control point. I usually suck horribly in shooters even though I love them so much, so it’s nice to be able to feel competitive.
The customization tools are out of this world, too. I just designed the Horde symbol as a decal for my brand new sports car, with license plate 4THEHRD 
Looks like we’re the only two dopers who play APB and we’re on opposite sides of the law. One of us is a lunatic driver who mows down civilians and then there’s you. See you on the streets of San Paro.
Shame, it’s a good bit of fun. My current guy is Grevan on LaRocha. He’s the Jason Statham-looking geek with the Horde symbol on his jacket and fancy sports car.
I play under the name adjustedmonk. He wears a grey suit, aviator shades and black tie and sports an AK47.
I installed it yesterday (or the day before, I can’t remember)
Seems like it will be playable once I can kind of understand it a bit better.
I’m an enforcer.
I’ve put hundreds of hours into this in the short time it’s been out. There is a lot of frustration but then something amazing happens that sucks you right in. Like last night i was doing a two on two mission against another team, we were supposed to defend this dump truck from getting stolen but me and my partner went down pretty quick to long range fire (we use sub machine guns). I respawned and ran back into the street to see the other team speeding towards me in the dump truck towards the delivery destination, i had no time to do anything but throw a grenade on the ground in front of them and get out of the way. When the grenade exploded the dump truck flew straight up into the air spinning front over end while on fire, i finished it off with my SMG killing both of them by blowing up the truck before it landed.
Oh… Nevermind.
The game does an absolute crap job explaining how to play. There are some tutorials on youtube put up by other players. Here is one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMWWj-OfNw8.
RTW has some fixes coming up that should help the game. When I get back from my business trip in early September, maybe we can all meet up online and run some missions.
That’s pretty much how it goes with any PVP game. You spend 90% of your time banging your head against the keyboard…and then that 10% of the time completely justifies your time and frustration.
Like tonight, I suffered through a 2v1 mission where the sole enforcer kept casually tasing us with the NL9 and arresting us even when we ganged up on her…then got into a 3v3 where my teammates and I didn’t even have to speak to coordinate, and between us we completely locked down the shotgun-happy forcers even at close range. The one time I manage to ram my car into two enemies and completely shut down a firefight in the street makes up for all those times my flimsy little Charge Cisco gets shot out from under me. And dammit, I am an awesome driver; there’s nothing like losing your tail on an escape mission by weaving through traffic and the carnage from an unrelated team’s mission.
It’s a rough game, and it’s definitely imbalanced right now. I can’t wait until the dev team starts making their first balance passes. But it’s still just fun.
My concern is that enough people hang on while they fix it and enough new players come in. I could see it tipping either into a great game, or a frustrating game filled with a bunch of griefers and exploiters that dies on the vine.
Well since districts fit only 80 people at a time even a pretty severe drop in population won’t affect the playing experience. Also the NL9 needs to disappear.
They’re working on rebalancing the weapons now, which means that every time I get owned with an NL9 I have to grit my teeth and remind myself it’s already being worked on.
There will be people leaving, and folks on the forums are already spelling doom for the game…but then, most MMOs’ forums have people spelling doom for the game. There probably will be a good chunk of people leaving in a huff because they can’t imagine that an MMO takes more than a month or two to work out the major kinks and begin maturing, but I expect they’ll trickle back in as things get fixed.