1. Make the chat box opaque
A lot of people have been complaining that they miss important information in the chat box because of the transparent background, so we''ll be looking to improve readability in this area.

2. Stop solo players getting into the back seat of a car (and be smarter for grouped players)
A big favourite in the dev team as well. The current plan is to have solo players always get into the driver''s seat, regardless of which door they''re at, and have players in groups get into the front seat unless they are absolutely positively aimed at the back door.

3. Fix the big 4x4 cars to stop being easily pushed over by the small cars (esp. the Pioneer)
This is being worked into our current rebalance of vehicle handling and will be rolled out to PTW shortly.

4. More clothing storage
We''re currently looking at how much we can safely increase this in the current system, and as part of a longer-term solution are looking at a ''stash'' system to let players store a much larger amount of stuff overall.

5. Missions with a 5-minute capture & hold (like Siren Song) should reduce the timer if you have no opposition.
We're actually looking to remove any of these kinds of stages in the unopposed sections of missions.

6. VOIP HUD personal indicator, maybe with an audio cue locally as well
Just a little visual or audio reminder to make sure you know whether or not you''re broadcasting.

7. Spawning. The spawn system seems adept at placing players in the line of fire of opponents quite frequently or miles away from where the action is.
Improving this really means adding more spawn points, which is something we''re actively engaged in. We''re hoping to have this situation improved and up on PTW for testing in the next few weeks.

8. Escape missions. The proverbial hot potato. Great when it works and sucks when it doesn''t.
We have a number of different ideas for how to improve these missions and I''ll post some up in this forum in due course.

9. Zoning into a district while at Notoriety 3/4 and immediately being dispatched against.
If we end up removing bounty missions as part of the matchmaking revamp, this issue will go away. If not, we''ll add a ''safety'' timer to prevent players being bountied against straight away (unless they commit further crimes).

10. Muting other peoples'' music playback when in the editors
Annoying, yes. We''re looking into it now.

11. More graphics options (32 bit)
This is constantly being worked on. I''ve asked our technical lead to make a post about the future for 32-bit O/S options in this forum, so watch for it soon.

12. A decal mirroring option for the vehicle editor
A popular request, definitely on our to-do list for the near future.

13. No missions should be ‘farmable’ due to limitless time (e.g. Breadcrumbs)
These missions have all been changed and the changes are going through our QA process now.

14. Better death camera
Another popular one internally as well as in the community. A revamp to the death cam is definitely on the cards, so watch out for more information on this soon.

APB must be run on a 64 bit system, or you'll lose out on a lot of performance, and textures will automatically be downscaled.

It is a bit of a hog, but should be ok to run on most dual-core,(or better), 4gb+ RAM machines with a semi decent graphics card.
Personally, with my pretty good pc, I have very rarely had any stuttering even at max settings (though 16x AS got a bit much)

http://www.thehumanavatar.com/

OS: Win XP
Processor: Core 2 Duo, 2.13 GHz or equivalent
Memory: 2GB RAM
Video: NVidia GeForce 7800 256MB
Hard Drive: 15GB
Sound: DirectX 9

OS Windows Vista /Windows 7 (We recommend a 64-bit operating system for the best experience)
Processor 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad or Equivalent
Memory: 4GB RAM
Video: NVidia GeForce 8800 GTX 512MB or equivalent
Hard Drive: 15 GB
Sound: DirectX 9

Can you get a trial from anywhere?

As we''ve announced we had to restructure the company to make it so that we can focus totally on APB.

APB is still going strong and we fully intend to support 100%. In fact we have a cool announcement coming this afternoon, so keep your eyes peeled

[quote=Phoenix234745975]
they aparently removed most of the programmers, coders etc for APB too, only keeping enough to make small fixes :/

We''re pleased to announce that the PTW is will be back online from Tuesday 17th!

The PTW (Public Test World) is where we get you, the players, to try out the latest changes and give us feedback before a patch goes live. With the return of the PTW we decided that you should try out the latest and greatest patch, 1.4.1! This isn''t just another set of bug fixes this is the beginning of some of the most fundamental changes to date. These are the APB features you''ve been waiting for!

So without further ado, enjoy a sneak peak of what to expect when we open the doors to the PTW next week!


Combat and Gameplay has been updated!
Gameplay has been improved to produce a smooth, immersive, and skill-based combat.

* Vehicle handling has been improved.
* All weapons have been rebalanced and now include recoil.
* All weapons fire out to 100 meters.
* All weapon audio has been updated.
* Audio in marksmanship has been altered subtly.
* Crouch is now client-side predicted.
* Accuracy modifier on sprinting.
* Accuracy now regains over time rather than instantly.
* Weapons can be switched during the re-fire timer.
* Default mouse sensitivity is lower.
* Time for open world vehicle break-ins has been lowered from 10 to 3 seconds.
* Arrest and Rescue times have been lowered.
* Vehicle husks now block weapons fire.
* Field of view is now weapon specific.
* Hit VFX should now align with the direction of the weapons fire correctly.
* Upon purchasing a new weapon players are offered the option to auto-equip that item.



Matchmaking
Accepting missions and backup has now been replaced with a Ready/Not Ready setting which anyone who plays online games will be fairly familiar with. Each individual group member can toggle their status to ''Ready'' and when all players in the group are ''Ready'', the group as a whole is considered eligible for a match. The matchmaking system will then select a suitable mission/dispatch and automatically put the group on that mission. At the end of the mission, all players return automatically to ''Not Ready'' to allow time to re-supply, re-spawn cars etc. The group can then set themselves back to ''Ready'' for their next mission, allowing the group to set its own pace.

* Players can no longer deliver open -world items during missions.
* Players who are low threat and playing solo will receive no dispatches against them and will instead join the group who are being dispatched against opposition. The exception being that solo players can still be dispatched against when a bounty is placed on them.
* Bounty Missions are only generated as a result of witnessing by Enforcers
* Criminal vs. Criminal Matches have been disabled



Information

* The /Help command has been added. This will now display the full list of slash commands available to players.
* A new set of dynamic tooltips have been added to the loading screens in order to remind new and old players alike of some of APB''s more subtle features.



Mirroring Garage Decals
Players are now able to mirror decals on both sides of a vehicle.


Advanced Graphics Options
An advanced graphics menu has been added to the video settings page of the options menu. This sub-menu features the following graphical options:

* Dynamic Shadows
* Environment Shadows
* Ambient Occlusion
* High-Quality Bloom
* Distortion Value
* Anisotropy
* Anti Aliasing



VOIP Improvements
We have made further improvements to the in-game VOIP system in order to address some of the issues players have been experiencing during play. These include:

* An issue where players lost VoIP when district switching has now been resolved.
* PTT functionality has been improved.
* Various VOIP related crashes have been resolved.
* The accuracy of the VoIP status indicators has been improved.
* Player- controlled microphone sensitivity options have been added.



Improved HUD Messaging
We are reworking the way in which PvP kills are conveyed to the player. This will supply players with valuable information as to what weapons both opposing and friendly players are using, without the need to manually enter the scoreboard.


New Content
We have introduced some fun new content for players to use in the form of clothing items, clothing presets, vehicle kits, vehicle presets, symbols, instrument packs and new songs. These additions comprise of the following:

* Trilby hat
* Cowboy hat
* Beret hat
* 8 New preset outfits (one outfit per gender, per organization)
* Pet Vet Shop symbol set
* Zen Pack symbol set
* Funky Beasts symbol set
* 4 New vehicle body modding kits
* 4 New vehicle presets (one preset per organization)
* 4 New original songs created with the new instrument packs
* New original song composed and produced by the UK music producer ‘Nocturnal’
* Nocturnal Instrument Pack: Bees Synth, DrumKit, Drum/Lead, Orchestra, OrchestraHit (OrchHit), Rise Synth, Bass, Sub Bass, Synth Arp(Arpergiator), StacString (Staccato String)
* Wilson LeBoyce Instrument Pack: Guitar, Drum Kit, Organ, Bass, Clavinet
* Simon Tran Instrument Pack: Bass, DrumKit, Harp, Lead synth, Strings, Synth
* Double B InstrumentPack: DrumKit, Guitar, SFX, Synth_Bass, Synth_Lead
* Britney BloodRose InstrumentPack: DrumKit, Bass, Guitar, Strings



To chat all about 1.4.1, you can now visit our new PTW Forums and leave us your feedback! Keep an eye on the forums next week as we''ll be announcing all the important details such as where to download the PTW client and how to use your existing characters!