Today I'd like to cover a game I didn't know existed only a few days back, a game out of a genre that is heavily under represented on our beloved platform, a(n old-school) sandbox MMORPG named Albion Online!
While the game will be free to play upon release it currently is in phase called "Summer Alpha", meaning that you can only play it if you buy an epic or legendary founder pack from https://albiononline.com/en/founderpacks
Normally the tag free to play alone would be enough to send me running, for multiple reasons I wont get into, but this game caught my attention and I did want to try it out so badly that I even supported them and now I'm really glad I did.
As I think the official website does a good job in providing all the necessary info I've only picked a few things I personally am very excited about the game-design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSZpze0TZHk
Terminology - Sandbox vs. Themepark
For people unaccustomed to the term, in a sandbox (like Albion Online or Eve Online) you don't apply the same formulas as in a themepark (famous themepark-MMORPGs being World of Warcraft, Everquest 2 or Age of Conan).
Instead of solely focusing on creating new dungeons, raids, battlegrounds and whatnot you give the player the tools to shape the world themselves.
Player driven
One central aspect of Albion Online is a player driven economy. About every item you can get in game was made by other players.
Apart from "safe-zones" most of the territory will be conquerable too, giving a nice touch and meaning to guild wars.
By This Axe, I Rule! (Robert E. Howard, Kull)
Quote"You can conquer the vast world of Albion for yourself! Territories mean shelter from the dangers of the wilderness, and room to build villages and gather precious resources. Claim yours, then expand your empire and protect it from invaders!"
But fear not, if are not really into PVP there is also meaningful PVE-content:
Quote"Monster hunting isn’t just a pastime in Albion Online. The creatures you fight provide you with the resources you’ll need to create weapons and items. Arm yourself wisely: Powerful beasts lurk in the world below, and only true heroes can best them!"
One world/realm, one ruleset
Another thing different to most themeparks is that every player of Albion Online plays on the same master server, in one huge game world.
That is one part that I really love from other games such as Eve or Mortal Online as well. Your actions do count a lot more too. Technically there could be a few downsides, but if the developers can distribute the nodes evenly around the (real planet ;)) earth I don't see lag being a major game-breaker.
Kleider machen Leute / Clothes make the (wo)man
There are no predefined classes in Albion Online, instead you decide what you want your character to be. From being a successful farmer, smith or tailor to being a well-known magician or an infamous war-lord, the decision is up to you.
Quote"Forget what you know from other MMOs. There are no classes in Albion Online, which means no restrictions on what you can equip. Experiment to design and create your own perfect build - in Albion Online, you are what you wear!"
Another very interesting feature is what the devs call "truly cross-platform". Apart from the game supporting Linux you may ask what's the big deal. Well, Albion Online is supposed to be playable on the major desktop platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows) as well as mobile platforms (Android and iOS) to its full extent!
They prepared a video to explain that feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPJstK0ykto
Personal thoughts
One big bonus for me so far: I've played quite a few MMORPGs, especially back in the days, and what struck me most is the community in Albion. I've never ever met a bigger bunch of open and friendly people than in that game. Whenever I felt the urge to ask a question I got dozens of nice answers although I'm sure some of them have been answered zillions of times.
You don't need a beefy rig to play this game. I did try it under Archlinux with Kernel 4.0 an AMD 6950HD (2GB) and the open source drivers (Mesa). I ran like a charm (one of the few unity games I can say that about) and so far I couldn't see any graphical glitches or other issues. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I don't wanna hang out with criminals in real life either, why would I want to in my leisure time?
There's a reason people started to take PK out of MMOs.
^ Umm, yes, this.
The problem with some old-fashioned MMO designs is that they assume that jerks don't exist. Well...I am afraid that assumption is not entirely correct, so all these designs led to a decade of drama and frustration in those games.
Like you, I don't want to spend my spare time with jerks either. And while I cannot entirely avoid said jerks logging into the same online games I do, at least I don't want to notice them for the jerks they are. Which means that good MMOs feature "jerk proof designs". Among things that rules out non-consensual PvP as far as I am concerned.
It's nice to see so many in development MMO's including Linux support.
You can definitely do the first, meaning you can spend all your time cutting down tress and harvesting other resources and killing monsters in PVE.
Well, I don't want to argue, but then you're simply not the target audience.
Imagine if you didn't lose anything if you'd die (like in real life, eh? ;)) at some point there would simply be no need to get better weapons and stuff. We are talking player made economy here!
You could only hinder that by Themepark mechanics such as adding new dungeons over and over with a higher item level. Only that way you could ensure that players keep on playing, even though the have the best items now.
I personally love nothing more than losing all my stuff upon death. It really adds to the thrill. Of course it can be totally frustrating. When I started Mortal Online back in 2010 it took me three evenings (real time) to get a horse from one point to another because I was killed on every route I took. But it was so incredibly much fun fighting these highwaymen.
Now there is another feature, your banks are not global. If you store your valuables in city A and you wander to city B and want to grab them, they are not there (how should they?). You have to hire a caravan or protection or try to stealthily make your way with all your precious goods. But you could be killed and robbed on the way.
This is what makes a sandbox. You have a shovel, you can do pretty much everything, but there are other people trying to throw a bucket of sand in your eyes ;)
But I want to stretch this once more. In contrary to Mortal Online there are way more "safe-zones" meaning no-pvp possible in there.
If you're not into that kind of game, fine, the majority of games is themeparks and more or less WoW-clones anyway.
Last edited by Ser Eduardo Mogambro on 10 July 2015 at 6:56 am UTC
View video on youtube.com
Last edited by Ser Eduardo Mogambro on 10 July 2015 at 1:18 pm UTC
You seem to be looking to build a very small, specialized player base, then. Strange decision from a business standpoint but who am I to judge?
There's that "themepark" thing again, without bothering to explain what that is or why it's bad. It's clearly meant to be something bad, but the closest I can get from your comments and the OP is "wussy" or "not hardcore" which ends up just sounding like bravado. Can you explain exactly what you mean by "themepark"?
This game is sounding less and less fun and more like a chore all the time. So not only do you have aggravation and frustration due to PKers, you also have aggravation and frustration due to sheer inconvenience. Sounds like a fantastic combination, this'll be a smash hit!
I am not a developer (of Albion Online), but I guess they're aware of that, although they surely hope to get a broader audience to try it out. Mortal Online was said to be a success if it hit 10.000 (subscribing) members, so I guess they are aware that the market for such truly-hardcore-pvp games is a very small one. Still, it is an existing market.
So, ya, if they wanted to do another themepark the target audience would be much broader, but they would also have many more competitors fishing in the same river.
It's not exactly something I mean and it's not anything bad at all! It's simply something different, like apples and bananas. Both are fruit, some people may enjoy both, while others prefer apples and some hate apples and only eat bananas.
There is nothing wrong with this.
The term itself is not well-defined, but basically: A themepark is just like the reallife counterpart. You go into a themepark to have fun (nothing wrong with this, you see?). There are different attractions and different areas and you go by and queue yourself for the attractions you want to see/ride.
A themepark MMORPG is just that, you start leveling your character in a certain area, then move on to the next one. At some point you go into a dungeon, later you're too strong and move to another one.
Too keep you coming back, the owners/developers have to provide you with new attractions.
It all comes down to: linear progression. After you've left a certain area there is basically nothing for you to go back for, apart from memories.
In a sandbox this is different. You get the tools (a shovel, bucket, whatever) and start to shape the world yourself. If they feel like it, they add more sand to the box, meaning that you get another continent and stuff like that.
There are other explanations around the web: Themepark vs. Sandbox
I'm sorry I didn't explain the terms, I wasn't thinking about that being rather specialized terminology, since I've been accustomed to (using) them for many years and I thought games like Minecraft and Co. would've had an impact regarding that. But of course there are few mmorpgs out there for Linux, so my bad!
As I said, you're simply not (part of) the target audience (again, that is not an attack or anything the like!).
Before Everquest and World of Warcraft started to dominate the market, there was a game called Ultima Online and many more games like it. They used to be sandboxes and many people enjoyed them. Then came a huge boom and suddenly there was only Star Wars Galaxies (Pre NGE) that could be called a sandbox.
If it's not your game, absolutely fine by me. I don't like every AAA-game out there and we could probably argue about a lot of games you like that I wouldn't touch and vice versa, but where is the point in that?
I personally dislike games like World of Warcraft although I've played loads of them in the past. I've also played many sandboxes and that's where I find joy. So let's just agree that you're simply not the target audience, just as we both are probably not the target audience for "Barbie's and Ken's Dreamhouse" ;)
I hope that my explanation helped you to get a little insight regarding the terminology, but please refrain from trying to argue about personal taste. The game is not what you desire, right, but it is indeed what I wish for. If this sounds stupid to you, so be it.
Last edited by Ser Eduardo Mogambro on 10 July 2015 at 3:28 pm UTC
Yes, I guess me not being their target audience is indeed pretty much the reason why I never played one. I don't think it's the sandbox concept per se that's turning me off, it's the hardcore features like the aforementioned lootable corpses that do that. I am really not a hardcore player by any stretch of imagination and despite I play games for a definite non-casual amount of time, I prefer my games generally to be not very challenging and/or frustrating. Which probably means I am falling through a lot of cracks in the current portfolio of prevalent game designs, although I like to believe that there are many people like me around that are technically neither hardcore nor casual.
However, I don't think that sandbox games automatically imply having a total focus on PK gameplay any more than themepark games would need to be focused exclusively on raids. I rather blame that on MMOs being a segment that's generally not very innovative (to phrase it politely). Most themepark games -are- WoW clones despite there is no god-given reason for that, and most sandbox games are perfectly interchangeable as well. Tbh, having read Albions' feature list, there is not a single idea in there that we haven't seen in another game before, and the only reason we we're even talking about it here in the first place is that it will have Linux support. Other than that, there seem to be at least a half dozen games exactly like it out there already.
Well, to some extent, I actually do, because as I said, if the whole economy is player driven you need something to sustain demand for the goods produced, else everybody will have the best armor for his playstyle in a few months and the economy would be dead.
So the pkers are what make the smiths and merchants and all the other player-types relevant. If there is no dead, there is no "always growing market".
I agree, but I see many technical reasons (lag, scale...) for this, among financial ones. A MMORPG most likely is much more expensive than the average singleplayer (or even multiplayer - we are talking scale here!) game, so they (developers/publishers) want it to be a save bet.
An regarding that: Apart from the story (which is different in most franchises, and be it just little details) and a few mechanics a shooter is a shooter too. I don't see much experiments there. I do see some, but most of these fail, which brings me back to the point: A mmorpg is not cheap to produce, so most will try a safe bet.
That being said: I absolutely understand you. In the past I've played a lot of themeparks as well and it was annoying as hell when we had organized an RP-event and suddenly some jerks started to dance naked on the tables (or worse, began slaughtering) while we could do nothing to stop them, being it by game-mechanics (pve-zone/realm) or because we didn't wear our fighting clothes.
Last edited by Ser Eduardo Mogambro on 10 July 2015 at 4:57 pm UTC