GamersFirst boss Bjorn Book-Larsson has been talking about some of the things we can expect to pay for when APB is relaunched next year as a free-to-play title. He talks about some of the differences between free and premium accounts, and about plans to charge for advanced customisation options.
Writing on the recently launched APB blog , Bjorn outlined the sort of benefits players can expect to receive for upgrading to a premium accountm saying "the perks usually involve things like making larger clans (like in WarRock), creating and controlling clans, or otherwise giving you various unique options and rewards (though they have to be meaningful in order to make sense)."
He goes on to explain GamersFirst's plans for customisation in the game. "For APB we have another great feature (and challenge) that we have to take into account as we design the new Basic vs Premium accounts - the customization system. The customization system can generate incredibly complex objects that at runtime get pushed to all the other players in a session, which means that the more complex the customization, the more stuff has to be pushed to everyone in a particular game.
"Therefore one of the original RTW guys (now contracting with us) Johann, came up with what we think is a really elegant solution to the problem of getting flooded with complex content; instead of limiting what you can customize as a free player, you will be allowed to customize almost anything, but you will not be able to store (and share) complex customizations above a certain complexity level unless you are a Premium player AT THE TIME OF CUSTOMIZATION.
"This has several benefits, first it would limit the amount of content pushed to everyone else in the game from free players (which would reduce the amount of loading required), but it would also let you be Premium for just one month, create a lot of customizations that month, and then use those items later on (even if your Premium membership has lapsed)."
For more on GamersFirst's plans to resurrect APB, check out our own interview with Bjorn Book-Larsson.
