For those who have not been following the games development, APB is an MMO created by Realtime Worlds, set in the near future where vigilantism have been legalised, so a big game of cops and robbers in an urban setting. You can play as ether an Enforcer or as a Criminal, with Clans and Parties, all normal MMO features. Dave Jones (creator of GTA) is one of the main people behind the game and Realtime Worlds, and off the back of Crackdown it has been much anticipated. It use a different payment model to most MMOs, playtime can be purchased per hour or 30 day unlimited (GameSetWatch has a nice article on the Psychology of this.)

All this is all based on the Keys to the City event, so only on ten hours or so game time, also this is the first MMO, I’ve experience apart from a little tour of Everquest by my brother in-law, so I may be a little off on common MMO features.

Stability
My PC is AMD Athlon X2 6400, 2gb ram, ATi 3800 512mb, so I’m at the lower end of the specification, especially for RAM, so your mileage may vary.

My stability has been poor, of the 12 or so time I’ve fired up the game, around half of them caused a reboot, which getting the latest hotfix drivers from ATi seemed to fix, most of the other had the game showing an error dialog and crash reporter, which in most cases I could not alt tab to. This seemed to happen when a larger number of players were close by, so I’m guessing this is the game running out of memory ( my task manager was
showing 2.16 gb used). One or two time I managed to play for as long as I wanted and leave the game normally. I was expecting the game to be more polished than this given its length of development and how long its been in beta.

Performance
Having said all that most of the time, my performance was fine (after I’d dropped the graphics level down a little), but I did hit some time where the lag made the game unplayable, trying to drive a car at high speed and not mow down people is very hard at two frame per second, the low frame rate also can make the fire fight less fun.

Visuals and Design
APB is pretty, the districts are nicely varied, with lots of areas to explore but still contained enough to be able to find your way around. You can see lots of nice little touches that create a believable city. The stunt ramps from GTA are also in evidence. I did see a number of graphical glitches, character appearing as the default model and then a few second later switch to the correct model. Animations also seem to be missing, with objects you carry
disappearing when you do certain actions, very alpha level.

Characters
As many other have said the character customisation is fantastic, the level of control, and the number of options is great. You also have the same level of control over your car, but that’s not something I really played yet.

Controls
As I’ve already said I’m not a big MMO player, more Battlefield and Left 4 Dead, so having to stop before switching weapon or performing an action seem to break the flow of the game for me, and meaning you need to plan action a little ahead of time. As for defusing bomb or checking a crime scene, most of the time you just need to press the action key (f by default) and waiting for the progress meter to fill up.

Driving
Some people have voiced their dislike of the car physics, but I found the arcade style fitted the game well. framerate and lag issues excepted, driving worked as I thought it should, getting a car onto two wheel seemed
to be in keeping with the whole Starsky & Hutch knockabout theme, weaving in and out of traffic was easy to pickup but could maybe do with being less springy.

Combat
Again setting aside the framerate issues. I did not like the combat, you only seem to have a single hitbox, so no headshots. It all feel far from fluid, even couching was clunky and a lot of the time it turned into just standing and pumping lead into each other.

Missions
The number of different mission is limited (also I only played as an Enforcer, so I have no idea what the CRiminal missions are like): Photograph a crime scene, Collect some stolen cars, Protect a location, Stop a criminal from escaping. So I could see them becoming boring quickly. Hopefully Realtime World’s have deeper missions as you progress in the game.

One particular pain, is they seem to promote camping at the final objective which can be very annoying With many the arenas for the final fights having design that allow the first player to arrive to control most of the area from high ground. Hopefully an update will address this giving a more tactical dimension to arenas.

Did I just waste 30 quid?
I really did want to like this game but it does not make it easy. I must say on my first play I was disappointed.

Crashes, lag, lacklustre combat. As a former game developer, I have some sympathy about the crashes, and Realtime Worlds do seem to be proactive having already put out one new build which did improve things. On the memory use side of things I have not seem anything that seem to warrant the amount of memory they use but I have not look in any great detail plus would not class this as a deal breaker. Performance and lag are being addressed and according to people from the closed beta only showed themselves after a previous update, which is already being looked at.

Customisation is one area they have got right, adding all those touches to your character is fun in itself and the auctions should see lots of cool add-ons.

Final Thoughts
Combat for me is biggest stand out problem, if it could be made less random and more fluid, that would help thing no end. Hopefully the small number of missions is something that will be less of issue as you get deeper into the game. I was expecting something like Multi Theft Auto with a little more structure , missions and progression, perhaps I was misguided but in its current form APB does not deliver.

The current build does not seem to offer much over multiplayer GTA as a quick pickup and play game while you have a little free time with the repetitive mission coming to the forefront on longer play session. At a number of points over the weekend I came close to uninstalling the game.

So I don’t think its a great game as it stands but the problems are fixable and I still want to see it grow and be a success but the actions of Realtime World banning reviews does not bode well.

Europe didn’t have the cheap local phone calls, so BBS’s took longer to be come popular (which are documented in Jason Scott’s great series) but I would say the demoscene and the cracker culture it grew out of was our starting point. Lots of (especially) game developers got their start in the scene and provided that same focus mostly around the Amiga. Giving european hackers culture a different style and shape.

Still little known outside graphics geeks and old 16bit people, as hacker culture has become more global, overshadowed by the current billion dollar Silicon Valley startup’s, the demoscene is still healthy and producing some wonderful art.

I know I have already contacted you about the Digital Economy Bill on the 19th of March. I am writing now that Harriet Harman MP has announced that the Bill is definitely going to receive a second reading on Tuesday April 6, widely expected to be the day an election is called.

Giving only 90 minutes to scrutinise a 24,000 word bill seems far from adequate, despite concerns being raised by members from both sides of the House. The debate in the unelected Lords is welcome but a Bill that all sides see as so important merits debate by elected representatives.

Over 17,000 letters have been sent to MPs in the last week. Showing people are concerned about this issue. I ask that you do everything you can to raise this issue with party managers to make sure that a proper debate and scrutiny take place on this bill in a new Parliament.

@Z303

• Robert Mills’ talk about some of the project Limor has produced.
• Tim O’Reilly’s post ‘At the Forefront of the Next Industrial Revolution‘, does a much better job than mine of explaining why what Limor’s doing is so interesting.
• Ken’s post as a happy customer and some more of Limor’s projects.
• Julian Richardson’s talking about a Arduino kit he made, designed by Limor.
• James’ post about his daughter meeting Limor.

Limor has made some great contributions to Open source hardware and has a good set of tutorials for the Ardunio, which were useful when I was first looking at playing with them.

Formerly she was at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center but now is a successful entrepreneur at Adafruit Industries which has been profiled on make, lifehacker and interviewed by Streampunk Workshop for last years Ada Lovelace Day.

Electronics like VLSI is one of those area that is seen as the dirtier end of technology all workbenches and soldering iron but women are making contribution and running successful businesses in these areas, so don’t be put off, get involved.

Honourable Mentions: Jane McGonigal for her great TED talk on why we need gamers, Gina Trapani for lots of cool productivity tips, Pippa Buchanan for the great DIY Masters.

Limor has made some great contributions to Open source hardware and has a good set of tutorials for the Ardunio, which were useful when I was first looking at playing with them.

Formerly she was at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center but now is a successful entrepreneur at Adafruit Industries which has been profiled on make, lifehacker and interviewed by Streampunk Workshop for last years Ada Lovelace Day.

Electronics like VLSI is one of those area that is seen as the dirtier end of technology all workbenches and soldering iron but women are making contribution and running successful businesses in these areas, so don’t be put off, get involved.

Honourable Mentions: Jane McGonigal for her great TED talk on why we need gamers, Gina Trapani for lots of cool productivity tips, Pippa Buchanan for the great DIY Masters.

I am writing to you in your role as Leader of the House of Commons. Please allow the Digital Economy Bill to have the debate, and genuine, line by line scrutiny such an important piece of legislation deserves. I have been on-line since 1993 and have been earning my living as part of the digital economy since 1997 but I see much that troubles me in this bill.

We are told the Bill will reduce copyright infringement on the Internet but with encryption services such as IPredator and HideMyAss, and products like the Pogoplug, even non-technical user can simple bypass any monitoring.

Web blocking also deserves thorough debate while again can be bypass using encryption services, removing access to sections of the internet is not an action that should be taken without careful consideration of all the consequences.

The danger to free WiFi access offered by small businesses is also something that needed careful consideration, making owners liable for infringement is making owners much less likely to offer this useful service in the future.

Given Monday’s announcements by the Prime Minster on giving every citizen access to personalised services via the internet, disconnection is a restriction on allowing those people access to government services, not to mention limiting their freedom of expression, education and work, all because of the actions of another household member.

This Bill has been the subject of heavy lobbying. With the BPI crafted the original amendment introducing Clause 18. There have been suggestions that one Lord who tabled such amendments had undeclared interests. The effect of this lobbying needs to be examined – which can only happen through full democratic scrutiny. In the wake of recent revelations about abuse of lobbying, we feel it is even more vital to have full scrutiny of this legislation.

Over 12,000 individuals have written to MPs asking for debate. I therefore ask you to consider making sure that clauses 11-18 of the Digital Economy Bill are given serious consideration, and are not rushed through during the ‘wash-up’ process.

Thank you
@Z303

Other people ’s letter are starting to make a difference, so write your own letter it only take a few minutes and Join the Open Rights Group.

My letter is below if you need some ideas:

Dear Mr Williams,

I’m think it is important to voice my concern about the Governments plans to rush the Digital Economy Bill into law without a full Parliamentary debate.

The damage to schools, businesses and innocent people who rely on the internet because of the Governments plan to disconnect people it suspects of copyright infringement. Looking locally would Bristol wireless still be able to continue their
fantastic work under a three strike regime?

Industry experts, internet service providers and internet companies even the security services are opposed to the bill, yet the Government seems intent on forcing it through without a real debate.

The plans to disconnect from the internet people who have been accused of copyright infringement are troubling and rightly getting much of the attention but other sections of the bill will bring large changes: The functions of the Office of Communications, changes to how Internet domain registries are regulated, how Channel Four Television is regulated, alongside the more general regulation of television, radio services and uses of the electromagnetic spectrum, The Video Recordings Act 1984 and Public lending right in relation to electronic publications.

Such a wide ranging and controversial Bill deserves proper scrutiny so we have best possible foundations for a digital Britain. As a constituent I am writing to you today to ask you to do all you can to ensure the Government doesn’t just rush the bill through and deny us our democratic right to scrutiny and debate.

Best regards,
@Z303

Finish the Web Applications Certificate I started last year
I’ve finished the 1st year now, still waiting for the results on the course from just before Christmas, but this year I have Databases within Website Design, Open Source Development Tools and to finish up Server Management, Performance, And Tuning to look forward too.

A Weekly summary
Something I’ve done at work for a few years now. Seems lots of folks have started doing this recently on their blogs. I’m not sure if I do enough to do a summary every week, maybe everuy month make more sense. Which leads smoothly into…

Blog more
Being able to write better or at least faster is something I’ve been meaning to work on for a while, which is only going to happen if I practice (via Hacker News), only six post in the last year is pretty bad, plus like others say (via Hacker News again), I find writing ideas down does help me think about ideas and development them more.

So like John Greenaway, I’m going to try project 52 and blog once a week for the year

Make stuff
I think Pete Gilbert said it best:

Make a new years resolution: Start making things – real things – in the new year. And try selling them. #newmanufacturing

Which for me taps into the Get Excited & Make Things! meme and some of the ideas in Makers by Cory Doctorow (Review by Jukesie)

With more experimenting physical computing be top of the list, so hopefully I’ll have some results to of messing around with arduinos (Bath Arduino hackday wave) and processing and my plug computer.

Hopefully all this creating things will give me some cool stuff to blog.

More work on my family’s holiday villa
I seem to be taking over more and more of the day to day work plus the website really needs a revamp and I have some new ideas from my OU courses. Running as business has taught me more about business than working as an employee for ten years did and being able to try out idea right away has been a good learning experience, some worked well, some worked a little, some didn’t really work but I learnt so much from each one.

Read more books
I used to used to read so much, at least a book a week, but I got out of the habit, this year I’m going to try to get back into it. I’m still working not sure the best way to go about this, setting some target but the way Derek Sivers list them on his site seem like I nice idea for non-fiction.

Side projects
So early last year I setup a tumblr on building, Pied-à-terre as a scrapbook of ideas and details for houses plus as a testbed for the platform so I could work out how to best use the tool.

Towards the end of the year I ended up setting up a second one covering some demos I like and to stop them swamping my twitter account, The Demo Scene

The plan for this year is to updated the regularly, have a post a day on each for the year on Pied-à-terre. I’m not sure I’ll be able to find 365 demos to post so I don’t want to set the same limit on The Demo Scene but we’ll see what I find.

So one post down only 51 more to go,

• Elevated by Rgba & TBC
  I’ve been a big fan of demos for a long time but this was something special. All this in 4K, I even ended up starting a tumblr on the demoscene if you like this sort of thing.
• Starfleet finally on DVD. It was huge when I was growing up and still stands up today.
• Rymdreglage – 8-bit trip chiptunes and lego, lots of clever bits you only spot of the second viewing, so impressed by all the hard work they put into the video.
• Kind of Bloop: An 8-Bit Tribute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue another chiptune project, but really trying to push things. You could tell from the first post about it that it was going to be special. (Listen to the trailer)
• Silhouettes Of Jazz, Love the technical way they used shadow casting to draw images combined into a nice film with a cool soundtrack, for me this was the highlight of the SIGGRAPH Bristol Animation Festival, really worth a look.
• Pixel City In a former life I did lots of procedural generation (mostly terrain and planets), so seeing this very cool project was a really blast from the past and really got me thinking about doing some computer graphics again.
• Bathcamp really lives up to its tagline ‘ideas and interesting people’, all credit to to Mike and the rest of the crew.
• Like A Boss by The Lonely Island NSFW but very funny, I even ended up buying the album.

Edited to add 2010/01/06
Three more that I forgot:

• Dropbox Just made sharing files between my desktop and laptop as easy as it always should have been. Windows, Mac and Linux, slick interface that stays out of your way until you need it.The freemium model works really well, with extra storage for referring people, discounts for paying for a whole year upfront. If you use more than one computer you need this.
• Spotify much like dropbox, this is slick, doesn’t get in the way, and helped me listen to loads of new (to me) music since I installed the application. They still have some holes in the catalogue and yes the ads can be annoying, they don’t give a discount if you paid for a whole year but the experience of just being able to listen to pretty much any track right away is compelling.
• DIY Masters is such a nice idea and really helped start think about a structure for all those things I want to learn and just taking the life long learn thing a little more seriously.