The developer, Sandbox Interactive, is a small indie dev team based in Berlin(with employees from around the globe) with no prior experience. But from what I can tell in the Alpha, they're doing a good job handling it so far.
Here's a quick rundown of the most important features:
- Focus on player-driven economy. No NPCs to sell to, just local auction houses. - Focus on player-made gear. Everything you can wear is crafted with a few, rare gear drops here and there. - Housing in multiple shape: -- Personal islands with limited space -- guild islands with a little more space -- Player made cities(cities with no shops, just basic NPCs and everything else built by players) -- Guild cities and guild warfare; Fights over territories(5v5), fights over cities(20v20) -- Very interesting open world(world is zoned, but not instanced. So basically like Ragnarok Online)
The graphics will remind many people of Runescape, even I thought of it even though I never played it. A lot of their economy/crafting mechanics seem like a direct copy of EVE Online (which is not a bad thing as we all know), but they also have some very neat and more unique ideas. (Such as limiting zerg guilds since you can only contest territories with a limited amount of players).
The game is currently in (the third I believe) Alpha and will be F2P on release with a Premium Account available as well as a cash shop. Though the cash shop is limited to vanity items such as different skins for housing stuff etc. [This is obviously subject to change] You can buy in with Founder's Packs(as usual...), you will get some vanity items and a bit of gear that puts you ahead 1-2 days of crafting.
The devs(mostly the CEO) are very active on their community sites, so if you want to know more about the game check it out: https://forum.albiononline.com/
If anyone is playing, my ingame name is Zerus and I'm currently guildless. PM me when you're on and I'll gladly help you get started.
Also, if you want to register/buy in and don't have a referral/want to support a fellow TLer, send me a PM and I can send you mine <3. That will give me some cash shop currency as well as some useful bonus items. Not sure if I'm allowed to post it in the OP, but I just want to share the game with you guys anyway.
On July 05 2015 10:59 travis wrote: I am willing to try this. Is that a POE style passive tree I saw in the trailer?
hmm what do you mean by "premium account" ? What comes with that?
I've never played POE. Quick summary:
There are paths for everything(use weapon X, craft weapon Y, craft animal Z) and to unlock a certain ability, you have to do the previous tier of that ability. So to craft a T4 magic staff, you have to craft a lot of T3 staffs. To use the T4 staff, you have to kill monsters with the T3 staff etc.
Also there are learning points you acquire over time. You unlock the higher tiers of a specific ability with those(so you need to fill it's XP bar, then upgrade it with the learning points).
About Premium accounts, there aren't any details about it yet. But they talked about it on the forums:
our current plans for Premium Accounts are as follows: - It can be bought for gold and will not be that expensive in Gold terms - it will give you additional silver yield from monsters. The actual value hasn't been decided yet, but we are considering an additional 50% yield. (see reasoning below) - it will give you faster destiny board unlocks - There might be some other little benefits, however, there will never be any benefits that are combat or P
(Destiny Board : the skill tree Gold: Can be bought for ingame silver. Gold is similar to GW2's gems)
@Tilorn91:
The current alpha will be for this month essentially with closed beta starting soon(ish) after that. CBT will transition into OBT and then they're aiming for a release in early 2016.
I gotta say, I got the alpha because I'm completely impatient and I don't regret it so far. The game certainly has issues(as was to be expected in Alpha) but the developer is very smart and transparent about their solutions.
On July 05 2015 22:25 Yurie wrote: So this is another of those games you run with a macro to level up skills while sleeping and get banned for doing it?
They've recently introduced an endurance mechanic to prevent people from crafting 24/7(even though I have no idea how effective it is, been crafting all day), also that would have to be a really elaborate macro since farming resources almost always requires killing NPCs and if you get knocked out there, you've lost everything (since there is full loot even in PvE)
Had to laugh when i saw this was going to be on tablets. Doubt it could ever have anything more than superficial depth now. Was interested before that.
On July 10 2015 03:09 Capped wrote: Had to laugh when i saw this was going to be on tablets. Doubt it could ever have anything more than superficial depth now. Was interested before that.
I can see the benefits. Such games need alot of grind and you can certainly farm, harvest or craft on your smartphone, while more complex things might require a pc to be executed properly. Making a good eco/guildsystem sounds cool, but the 5on5 video looked pretty boring.
On July 10 2015 03:09 Capped wrote: Had to laugh when i saw this was going to be on tablets. Doubt it could ever have anything more than superficial depth now. Was interested before that.
I can see the benefits. Such games need alot of grind and you can certainly farm, harvest or craft on your smartphone, while more complex things might require a pc to be executed properly. Making a good eco/guildsystem sounds cool, but the 5on5 video looked pretty boring.
Nah the game is being defined to be "truly cross-platform" which basically translates to "boring tablet gameplay for all!". Still, it could be fun in the way clash of clans, hearthstone and puzzles and dragons is, its just way off the mark of what i was expecting.
On July 10 2015 03:09 Capped wrote: Had to laugh when i saw this was going to be on tablets. Doubt it could ever have anything more than superficial depth now. Was interested before that.
I can see the benefits. Such games need alot of grind and you can certainly farm, harvest or craft on your smartphone, while more complex things might require a pc to be executed properly. Making a good eco/guildsystem sounds cool, but the 5on5 video looked pretty boring.
Nah the game is being defined to be "truly cross-platform" which basically translates to "boring tablet gameplay for all!". Still, it could be fun in the way clash of clans, hearthstone and puzzles and dragons is, its just way off the mark of what i was expecting.
Truly cross-platform means that you don't have different versions of the game/servers for different devices.
It actually offers a lot of depth for the little content it has, PvP in it's current state is way too complex for tablets but you can take care of your farms and buildings on the run. Maybe a bit of PvE, but everything else is too fast for tablets.
I mean look at this:
Try doing that on a tablet. And they're going to make combat a lot more complex, too, according to forums.
Also you should be a little bit more open towards new ideas.
On July 10 2015 04:52 mTwRINE wrote: Making a good eco/guildsystem sounds cool, but the 5on5 video looked pretty boring.
The main problem with the organised fights atm is that people are pretty bad and undergeared, but also that the way they intended to do this "structured PvP" is a bit off, too. Nobody is actually going after the objectives. The fights with higher gear (in the dungeons for example) look a bit more exciting, and as I said they're aiming to improve combat a lot (apparently they're looking at DotA-likes atm for combat feel). So I hope they've realized that themselves!
They should take a page from GW1 imho, lots of good modes to copy.
I didnt see anything in that video you couldnt do on a tablet. The quickswitching in inventory might be a bit difficult depending on how responsive the game is i guess.
I would go out on a limb to say they will NEVER complicate the game to a point where tablet players are at a disadvantage. You dont market the game as cross-platform on the same servers only to put a large portion of your playerbase at a disadvantage. Put simply you dont spend resources on creating a tablet-version of the game so people can experience only a part of the game properly on it.
Like i said, it will probably be fun but the gameplay itself will never be complex and i firmly stand by that belief. Perhaps the games systems will be complex like the crafting, economy, building etc and that would probably make it one of the best tablet games on the market but a mediocre PC game at best.
I also think its going to have an extremely abusive cash shop to exploit the IAP craze.
BTW this is all speculation i hope im proved wrong :-)
As I said, the main factor for the phrase "TRUE cross-plattform" is the fact that you don't play a seperate version of the game, or that you just have a gimmicky app but actually do stuff just like you'd do on the PC.
There's already lots of clicking just like in a DotA game, fast movements, fast switches in fights etc and I find it hard to believe that anyone could do that on a tablet.
As far as I know, they have a very hardcore following that already shat on the developer for trying to bring in actual in game items for gold, since then they've reverted everything back to vanity items. Though I didn't follow the game back then, this is from what I've read on the forums.
I mean, I get your points and I was extremely sceptical at first, but this is an indie company with 15ish devs. If they screw this up, this is it for them. They don't have a big investor or other games to keep them alive. So I'm inclined to say they are trying their best to keep the hardcore followship and make them happy, and then have a casual followship as well that comes/goes.