The memories we share with other players are as good as the game allows them to be through the possibilities that it offers, whether it’s good gameplay, interesting and engaging lore, or systems that the game is built upon. New titles come and go, sometimes a potential hit comes up, with some players wishing to find The Legendary World of Warcraft Killer in it. Many games tried to kill WoW, all of them failed.
Every once in a while a new game shows up and while it certainly won’t kill the most popular MMORPG ever created, it can stand its ground on its own, bringing something new to the table. Today I’m going to talk about one of these latest MMO games. Gather up people. It’s time for Albion Online review.
Albion Online is a medieval fantasy Sandbox MMORPG developed and published by Sandbox Interactive. The game was announced back in 2013 as a fantasy game similar to EVE online in its core. This ambitious idea of a creating a real Free-to-play Sandbox MMO that would include crossplay between all platforms, like consoles, PCs, and mobile phones attracted many, which resulted in massive numbers of people being ready to support developers through crowdfunding. In 2017 Sandbox Interactive announced that Albion Online project raised about 10,000,000$ in funding through Kickstarter, from over 250,000 founders.
Developers had a certain vision they wanted to fulfill. They wanted Albion Online to emphasize player freedom, allowing for a non-linear experience, where every player’s journey would be a unique one. Players would be the ones crafting every present piece of equipment in the game, and they would lose their gear when killed in certain zones. There would be no linear storyline a player could follow and everything happening in Albion’s world would be dependant on players themselves (including player driven economy and market). If I heard about the game when it was first announced I would probably fund it all by myself if I had the resources in a form of vaults filled with gold.
The game finally released July 17, 2017, after alpha build, and numerous beta releases. Developers ditched some ideas in the beginning, like the game being free to play (which will change in April 10 2019, as the game goes for Free to Play with available premium account access business model), or the game release for phones using iOS and Android (which by the way changed too, as you can play Albion Online on your phone nowadays). You can say that Sandbox Interactive managed to make their vision come true after some ups and downs, as some things were uncertain for long periods of time, but in the end it seems like most things have been accomplished just as SBI has planned. How they did that and what did it cost? Are founders actually enjoying the game nowadays?
Am I enjoying it as a hardcore games fan? Let’s take a closer look.
Albion Online Presentation
This game looks pretty nice. While I would like to see some more brutal, harsh and cold environment in a hardcore pvp game, cartoonish Albion Online is pretty good-looking. After my experience with games like Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, Torchlight, or Divinity: Original Sin, those graphics seem quite generic at times though. Maybe some ReShade or graphic mods in the future would fix that. Maybe.
It’s not hard to tell what’s going on. I have many problems with Black Desert Online to this day for example, when during some bigger Node Wars I can’t tell what’s really going on from between all those skill particles. In comparison - Albion Online provided me with some good clarity of what’s happening on the screen, even during large battles at black zones.
Sound design is decent. I’ve never heard anything that would’ve been too loud or annoying or lower in quality. Cities feel alive, wilderness feels wild, and well-crafted music compliments that. Music can be mysterious, sometimes more childish and calm with some high notes playing in the background, and sometimes more serious with some heavy tones that makes combat feel a little bit more serious.
Albion Character Creation and Classes
You open up the game, log in, and prepare to create your first character. You are greeted by a simple character creation screen, you can change your gender, color of your skin, hair, beard, and… wait, where are the classes? That’s right. Classes are something that is done much differently in comparison to other MMOs. You see, your class depends on the gear you have currently on your character. Each piece of equipment you wear may give you certain stats and skills, that you will be able to use on your character. What it means is that changing the class of your character is as simple as equipping different items in your armor, accessory, artifact or weapon slots. You can be a raging berserker at one moment, and with a few clicks you can turn into a powerful hunter.
This system plays well into more hardcore-ish nature of the game, where you can lose your items in PVP zones if you are not careful. All you have to do is to respawn, grab your different set from the storage and you’re ready to fight again. Kind of. You see, you can increase your proficiency in using certain items. If you are using a sword, and you suddenly switch to using arcane staves, you won’t be as powerful as other players that used arcane staves for a long time, since proficiency gives you new passives and skills. You will have to spend a lot of time with a certain build to truly master it, to remain competitive on PVP scene.
PVP, Full-Loot System, and Low Skill-Ceiling
The idea of Ironman mode in video games is what hooks me up to games in the most efficient way. I am a hardcore player that looks for greater challenges and higher stakes. What I am looking for in the games, is the idea of actions that may bring hurtful consequences. This is why games like Dark Souls, DayZ and XCOM 2 and EVE Online remain as my top games. This is why I often end up playing on the highest difficulties right away, and why I download mods for The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, like Skyrim:Requiem, and Skyrim: Dead is Dead, which not only makes everything harder and more realistic, but the death of a character means automatic removal of every saved game associated with it.
That’s what I enjoy the most in my games. The idea of losing progress during my playthrough makes me more careful, more strategic, I think about the game and engage in it to a point where I am so stressed about upcoming fights, that my heart feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest, where everything I gained up to a certain point is at stake. It’s a powerful feeling.
When I heard about Albion Full-loot system that enables players to take loot from fallen enemies in PVP I immediately jumped on the bandwagon and wanted to experience it myself. I imagined slowly mastering my character, and studying the game to the point where I can deal with everyone on the battlefield, by knowing the game and tactics in and out. Am I able to do that here?
There’s a lot to talk about. While the idea is just perfect, the execution seems lacking. This system requires certain tweaks for it to work properly. What went wrong in execution? Well… the first issue is the structure of the game itself. Remember how I said that this game was developed as a cross-play title simultaneously for consoles, PCs, and mobile phones? A game that works arguably the same on PCs, that enable developers to make some advanced controls, and phones, that have limited possibilities in that area is a big red flag.
Advanced controls and variety of combos that allow different approaches to different situations is what creates high skill-ceiling in games. High skill-ceiling in games that base their main PVP idea on high stakes of losing your equipment is mandatory. Albion Online doesn’t provide that possibility. Good and talented players should have the possibility to shine and whoop some ass. With lower skill-ceiling that is caused by restrictions put on controls for the sake of the game working on mobile phones, PVP just changes into the game of numbers. When actual skill and knowledge play a smaller part in player to player interactions - the one who has better stats and items has a crushing advantage. And if this advantage can’t be reliably turned around with skill, then something is wrong.
Now, I’m not saying that skill does not matter in Albion Online. All I’m saying is, that it plays a much smaller part, and it’s absolutely unacceptable to leave it in this exact state for the entire lifespan of this title. I’m looking forward to some patches in that regard.
Another issue is that content can’t be fully enjoyed when you are playing solo. This issue connects to the previous one. When even slightly outnumbered - you won’t be able to do much. You can try to run and kite but in the end you will most likely always end up losing, especially at a high level. In a game like Dark Souls (which I know, isn’t an MMORPG but hear me out), I can get ganked by three different players that are playing as a team and I can in some instance - kill all three of them just because I’m playing better, I know the locations, I know which attacks in which places will give me the most value. I’m not able to do that in Albion Online, with the only reason being, that it’s mostly focused on numbers, whether if it comes to stats, or party members. In this game, you can just get Zerged out of existence by a different party, guild, or alliance.
Ah yes. Alliance system. Imagine that you and your guild, let’s say seven members walk off to the pvp zone to get some new stuff for guildmates. Another party of seven shows up, so you decide to fight over loot. It’s perfect, every player gives it all to not lose their equipment, the fight goes on and on. You are close to winning. Aaaaaaand suddenly the other party sends a message to the allied guild, a group of fifteen warriors shows up and slaughters your party with ease. Now, I’m not saying that this is bad in its entirety. Of course, numbers can and should win battles. But in a game where there are high stakes, numbers shouldn’t be that much more important than pure skill and knowledge. While skill is somewhat important in Albion Online, watered down control scheme and abilities make it really hard for a really skilled online warrior to truly shine. This is a sign of wasted potential.
Changing how the game operates in PVP when it comes to controls would require completely rebuilding the game from its core, which SBI won’t do because it would mean developing an entirely new game. But there are some tweaks that could massively impact how the game feels for solo players or smaller parties. Creating Alliances should have higher requirements in the form of more expensive payments and it should be more restrictive, Reputation System has to be enhanced to reward or punish specific actions made by specific player types (including some player rating system, something like dividing players into good and evil types, with both types having its advantages and disadvantages in certain areas of life), some kind of Bounty system should be implemented, and it should be optimized in a way in which it can’t be abused, friendly fire should be present in the game to discourage large guilds from collapsing on smaller parties, and of course some kind of higher skill-ceiling possibilities should be added as well.
PvE Content
There’s not much to say about this topic. Same story as in almost every other review. Albion Online is a PvP heavy game with PvE sprinklings, that exist solely to augment your PvP experience. You are fighting a boss? Great, another party shows up and you have to fend them off. Do you want to grind in some high-level areas to open up some treasure chests? A Party shows up and you have to fight over loot, accept the other party’s strength and walk away, or grab everything you can and run.
Is it bad? It goes both ways, even though Albion Online was advertised clearly as a PvP focused game. Somewhat lacking PvP focused game as I mentioned in my previous paragraph. I am fine with close to no PvE content as long as PvP content is engaging enough to keep this game alive for several years. It all needs some major updates and a series of improvements so I would gladly see some new PvE content. Maybe some new dungeons in which players are forced to enter alone and can forge short-term alliances with strangers inside, alliances that can be easily broken by a betrayal over loot. While it doesn’t require some special changes or updates to the game to make it real, there would have to be some secret set of unspoken rules that other users respect.
There are also Expeditions and Hardcore Expeditions that work as an instanced raids for solo or group play. It can be accessed by an NPC placed in a city, it teleports you to the expedition area, you do your job before the timer expires, yadda yadda yadda. Nothing exciting really. There are no real thrills as you can’t lose anything there except time and item durability.
There’s a big “Oberon” update that came a few days ago. Lots of PvE changes and content, some quality of life upgrades, new creatures, locations etc. What’s great about this update is that there is some hidden dungeons thing going on. All over the world players will be able to encounter hidden entrances to randomly generated dungeons, with random enemies, bosses, and some sweet loot. Every dungeon should offer unique experiences, but we shall see if it’s true, or if it’s another sales pitch.
I hope it’s the former. New creatures swarming the areas should drop some new loot, so there’s that. And the amount of grinding necessary for better items will be lowered because of the larger fame points gain. Great.
So yeah, currently (excluding Oberon, that I didn’t experience yet) PvE content seems somewhat lacking in comparison to already lacking PvP content. After all that has been said.
Can I really recommend the game?
Is This Game Worth It?
Even though I didn’t get exactly what I was looking for in a Hardcore Sandbox MMORPG with
Full-loot PvP it doesn’t change that Albion Online is pretty fun. It hooked me up for some time, and initial excitement didn’t die off fast. In fact, it didn’t die at all. I still hold some high expectations for this title, and I hope that the developer will eliminate every issue the community has with this game. It’s a PvP focused game, so its PvP should be as perfect as it is possible. Currently - it’s not. I’m really looking forward to some serious changes in that area. I value player’s skills, speed, tactics, and decision making over some cheap numbers in bodycount. If this game enhances player versus player interactions, like adding friendly fire, more options when it comes to outplaying enemies, that don’t rely that heavily on a rock-paper-scissors mechanic, and some possibility for a solo player to whoop some ass against enemy groups with similar equipment, then this game will be absolutely perfect. Current mechanics hold the rest of the game hostage.
Also, something has to be said about pay to convenience trope present in the game. You can spend some real money for premium status, to get some in-game currency. That’s a short overview. I understand some things about this business model. It lets some players explore the game’s content faster, and personally I never felt the need to pay (until Black Desert Online came out, as progression without it is an epic joke) for faster farming, or for faster acquirement of weapons, for better exp rate etc. Many players on forums mention that progress made through special shop can be easily ended by killing a player in pvp zone. Tis’ true, but a special shop, coming really close to pay to win features, in a game that players have to pay for to play is becoming a serious problem, it is getting repetitive and ridiculous. It should have no place in a vast land of MMORPGs, especially if a user can buy silver (Albion’s currency) for real life money. While I am absolutely fine with better starting equipment, new skins for characters, heroes, a unique avatar, special mounts, a faster start for casual player so he can get some edge even when he might be busy with school or work. It’s helpful and it makes you feel unique, for a small loan in a form of your credit card of course. Spending real money for that is perfectly fine.
But when you can purchase stuff, that directly gives you free resources, in resource based games (as I consider MMORPGs as heavily resource centric), then people will start to talk about p2w, even if that does makes a small impact on actual economy. Which will make new players feel negative towards the game.
My feelings are mixed and I will certainly keep playing, but if the game stays just like it is right now, and development team will address issues that I mentioned, saying that they are not going to change a thing in that regard, then in a few next months, at the end of the year probably, my excitement and interest that has been running down ever so slightly will sadly, and very slowly die off. Until this day I will keep on gaming, i have some pieces of gear to enhance, and my house needs some serious makeover.
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