APB and worldwide fame

Slashdot posted a story about an interview done with the creative director for APB, the upcoming (forgive me) cops and robbers MMO. Edge magazine has the interview (it's in two parts - use the links on left to go to part two), in which they discuss gameplay mechanics, launch dates, and something he calls 'heat mechanics':

if a criminal has just been on a complete rampage, recklessly blowing stuff up and killing people, heat builds up until eventually we unlock him to every single enforcer on the server. It’s not part of their missions, it’s just that this guy has become number one wanted and everyone has the authority to take him down. That’s a fun mechanic from both sides; everybody who’s a criminal is going to want to reach that and if you’re on a mission for the enforcers you’ll see that guy and wonder whether you should break away get him.

It's an interesting thing to think about, if it works. The idea certainly sounds fun. The interview makes it sound like there's a lot of new processing going on, new algorithms, etc., so it may be that when players get in it'll all blow up, but let's hope not - new is good.