Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Realtime Worlds in Dundee, Scotland. A second office is located in Boulder, Colorado.

APB, a cops-and-robbers MMO based on the engine used in Realtime’s critically acclaimed sandbox shooter Crackdown, is a PC-only title set to make its debut in Fall 2009. Realtime VP of Business Development Ray Miller and Audio Lead Roland Peddie joined us for a quick interview shortly after Realtime’s partnership with Vivox for integrated voicechat was announced this week. We then caught up with Vivox founder Monty Sharma for his thoughts on what makes APB a perfect fit for Vivox technology.

Ten Ton Hammer - We’re really glad that APB is back on the air, so to speak. Could you update us on the launch plans? Is there any truth to the rumors that APB will be cross-platform?

Ray Miller, Realtime Worlds VP of Business Development - Our commercial launch will be PC at first, that’s not to say we won’t do console at some point, but when we launch it will be PC. We’ve been pretty under-the-radar for a while; we’ve shown just a couple glimpses of the game at last year’s GDC and I think, come E3, you’ll see a much more visible presence because we’re getting closer to launch in late Fall.

Ten Ton Hammer - The core gameplay of APB - and correct me if I’m wrong - is that when criminals begin pulling off a caper, an APB goes out and the enforcers are alerted. If the criminals make a clean getaway, they’re rewarded, but if the criminals are caught, the enforcers are rewarded.

Ray - Absolutely.

Ten Ton Hammer - Walk us through how Vivox ties in with that core gameplay, if you would. Is it purely a communication tool?

Roland Peddie, Realtime Worlds Audio Lead - There is definitely the gang communication side of it, where you can work out tactics and that sort of thing., as if you were talking on walkie-talkies with you fellow gang member. But the positional 3-D aspect of it also comes into play where you can talk to anyone standing near you, so you could be talking to the opposition or overhearing the opposition talking to each other. It’s quite a natural sort of experience; you’re talking and people nearby can hear you. Beyond that, we haven’t gotten into any additional gameplay tie-ins with the voicechat system so far.

Ten Ton Hammer - I was going to ask whether you might be able to have a dispatcher role for the enforcers, if the criminals might have a rooftop observer to pinpoint roadblocks or if they might have a scanner monitoring the enforcers, but I imagine that’s all yet to be decided?

Customizability is a big part of APB, as these early character model concepts show.

Roland - Yea, those sort of things we’d love to investigate and we’ll see what happens.

Ten Ton Hammer - Customizability of characters through clothing and kit seems to be very important in APB. Are you planning to use any of the more avant-garde features of Vivox, like voice fonts?

Ray - One of the things that we’re definitely offering the users is the ability to use voice fonts; that’s a feature that we’re going to extend to them. I really think that disguising your voice will be something that people will have a lot of fun with.