Last week, MMORPG Albion Online withdrew from the beta test. Now it has more than 170 thousand characters registered.
We will analyze the pros and cons of the novelty. The article is written according to the experience of the first 15 hours of the game and is intended for beginners.
Agree
No boring quests. But in Albion Online quests are not the typical MMORPG “kill 40 skeletons and collect 30 skulls.” The only line of tasks is optional training at the beginning. And while Albion Online is not lost in playability.
The economy is in the hands of players. There are no NPC traders in the game. Items are created and sold by players, they also change the game currency. Because of this, prices are determined by supply and demand, as in life (crossed out). The shops where resources are processed and items are created, also belong to the players, and they will take money from you for using. Do not want to pay – buy at auction a piece of land and open your shop. Or build it on a personal island.
Sandbox. The game is accessible to personal and guild “islands” – locations on which to build the necessary structures. With such an infrastructure, you do not have to pay for their use in cities. The development of the island is a game in the game, a town-building and a carrot-growth simulator.
One game, one server. “Are you playing the N game, too?” And on which server? And, no, I’m on the other, forget “- an impossible conversation for Albion Online. There is one server for all platforms and countries.
Destiny Board. This is the concept that controls all the progress in the game. In fact, this tree is archive, which opens access to the creation and use of new items. Some of the appointments on the Destiny Board give permanent bonuses, for example, to damage.
Development in any direction. There are no races and classes in the game: you do not have to tank the whole game if you chose an elf orc at the beginning. Characters come to the world as equals, as in life (crossed out). Players do not choose to spend precious skill points – “on strength or on intelligence”. The style of the game determines only the equipment. Tired of being a magician – make a bow and forward, there are no penalties for it. On the contrary, in the new direction you are faster, because you already know how to work with resources. For combining items of different classes, too, do not fine, collect incredible sets of equipment. Assassin with a book of spells and in steel boots? Completely.
Against
Weak graphics. If the developers conceived it as “unusual”, “stylized” or “cartoonish,” it did not work out. The screenshots and video style is not bad, but the game does not cling. The visual series does not have enough features, it turns out not interesting, but simple.
Boring camera. It hangs over the character’s head, turns and inclinations are forbidden, it’s impossible to catch a beautiful view from behind the hero’s back. To move away, to encompass the view of the neighborhood, also do not give. The result is a scanty survey, movement by microscopic segments, well, just boredom.
There is no interesting world. The Albion Online universe is faceless, with no features and an interesting history. (For example, the history of confrontation between people and orcs.) The territory is beaten into monotonous squares and is perceived precisely as a set of squares, and not a whole world.
Tedious development. The cycle of development is boring. Collect resources – rework – to craft items. Repeat until you unblock the Destiny Board with the program you need to craft or use the next level items. For a change, of course, there is a dungeon. But where are they now?
Many people. But in this sense of online games? There are so many characters around so that you stop seeing people living behind them. When alone, you run through the forest and meet another player, this is an event. I want to talk to him, invite him to the group. When there are ten players around, they are a gray mass, which only hinders the gathering of resources.
Lags. This is a consequence of the previous paragraph, but I did not unite them: there are lags without a crowd, there is a crowd without lags. And Albion Online has it all. Sometimes it takes 5-10 minutes to stand in line at the entrance. Sometimes the server lies. It happens that there are more than thousand players in the city. Then it is impossible to be in them because of terrible lags. But if in this city a personal or guild island, there is nowhere to go, you need to go inside.
Extension of money. The model of the game is “buy to play.” But it’s wrong to think that you can pay once and play in pleasure. First, Albion Online offers a premium status, which simplifies the pumping. Regular players can not compete with “premium” in the pace of development. (However, the premium can also be purchased for in-game currency.) Secondly, for real money (by exchanging them for game gold), you can buy any item at all. This undermines the desire to persistently develop.
Conclusion
Sometimes you may sigh over the graphics and grumble because of the monotonous gameplay, but do not quit playing. The fact that the game is not like the other MMORPG, because it abandoned many of the laws of the genre. The fact that gave the opportunity to develop in any direction and change this direction on the go.
It is likely that Albion Online will catch you. And if not, you will at least get acquainted with the game.
