Albion Online | a Review
originally published on 13/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the completely random and unremarkable G.E.M.Simov, a being fit to dig in the mines, here to tell you about the hard labor experience of “Albion Online”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Albion Online, henceforth just Albion, is a Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game (MMORPG). In it, the Player takes control of a Character and is dropped into a vast world of opportunity.
Everything takes place on a single plain that is made to appear as though it has elevation and verticality, but is, in truth, exclusively a flat surface. The Player controls their Character (the PC) by either using the WASD keys to issue movement commands, being capable of combining two (such as W and D) to cause diagonal movement. Alternatively, the Player can click wherever they want their PC to go, and the PC will go there, if possible. It is important to note that if clicking on a spot that cannot be reached by walking in a straight line, the PC will walk forward and collide with whatever object is in the way, requiring that the Player input more movement commands to circumnavigate it.
The way the game world exists is in big areas that are loosely connected. They are all, roughly, big squares, each adjacent to up to four other squares, with each adjacent square being accessible via a particular exit. These exits are limited to one per side (of the square), and are used when the PC walks up to them, at which point a loading screen appears and, when the loading process is concluded, the Player is allowed to resume playing the game, their PC now situated in the new area.
There is also an opportunity to traverse from specific areas to others that are not adjacent, though that process is more complex than just involving walking into the exit.
Now, what can be found in an area? That defines what kind of area it is - and there are, roughly, five types of areas. There's the forest, there's the swamp, there's the steppe, there's the (snowy) mountain, and there’s the highland. In the forest, there are three types of resources - Wood, Hide and Stone. In the steppe, there are another three types of resources - Hide, Ore and Fiber. In the mountain, there are yet another three types of resources - and so on and so forth. These five resource types - Hide, Ore, Fiber, Wood and Stone - are split into five groups of three and spread out over the area types.
Those five resources are one of the main reasons to go to the areas - and are the main thing to do in the area. Collecting and gathering raw resources. That happens by finding the resource - with every type of resource except Hide being simply present in the game world - and clicking it. However, the Player must have the proper tool in their inventory, as well as a high enough skill to use that tool. In the case of Hide, the Player must first kill an animal non-Player Character (NPC) so that they can then gather the resource.
Unfortunately, that's as far as the interesting factor goes… Really! The gameplay winds up boiling down to walking around, clicking a resource node and waiting a certain amount of time for it to be gathered. That amount of time is affected by the equipment of the PC and the skill level of the PC, but the fact of the matter is that it simply takes time and features no mechanic.
That is not all, however. For, aside from it being something that does itself and the Player waits for it to be done, it also features the problem of being done in an environment that is navigated by other Players, which other Players can, at any time, either attack the Player or also click the resource node… Thus potentially taking a third, two thirds or all of the possible resource in the node, dependent on how quickly they gather when compared to the other Player.
Additionally, there is something overwhelmingly insubstantial about the Player's progression and the meaning of the actions they take. I will now talk about the skill system!
In Albion, the PC has a humongous skill tree (called the Destiny Board). It starts from one node, which gets unlocked as the Player completes the tutorial, and opens up to allow all other nodes to be accessed. To get to a node, the Player needs to accumulate a certain amount of Fame (which is, essentially, this game’s equivalent to experience points). Fame is accumulated by doing something - be it gathering a resource, fighting an enemy, processing a resource, crafting an item, fishing, and so on.
To unlock a node, as an example the Mining node, the Player needs to get a mining tool in their inventory, they then need to run around an area and collect as much Ore as possible. Every time Ore is collected from a resource node, the PC is awarded some Fame towards the Mining node. Upon reaching a threshold, the Player unlocks that Mining node in the skill tree, which unlocks a set of other nodes or a single new node.
Here is where things get out of hand. Instead of every node leading into another node and the progression being bound to getting new nodes, most nodes feature 100 possible levels. Unlocking the node puts it at level 1, but there are 99 other levels that need to be accumulated - and each level increases the efficiency of the activity associated with that particular node by less than half a percent.
Now, that’s a lot - considering that each node is, generally, followed by 5 other nodes, with each of those being able to go up to 100. So, to maximize one’s ability to mine, the Player needs to unlock 5 nodes and then level them all up to level 100. That is a very big deal, because it is not just about mining - it’s about mining particular resources.
These nodes are not just nodes. They are bound to Tiers of resources. There are 8 Tiers of every type of resource, and there are also additional funky rarities that are related to the 4 latter Tiers of the resource, but I might not talk about that. Regardless, each Tier of resource is bound to a node - so the first mining node (that has 100 levels) can be leveled up (past level 1) by mining Tier 4 Ores. However, the second mining node can be leveled up by mining Tier 5 Ores. The third - Tier 6, the fourth - Tier 7, and the fifth - Tier 8.
So, the Player must travel to particular areas, where the desired Tier of resource is available, and must then go on to spend hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours gathering that resource. Let me just provide a number - to get to level 100 on the first mining node, the Player needs to mine 386,284 Ores of Tier 4. Even if mining 2 Ores takes 1 second, we are talking about 56 HOURS of just mining Tier 4 Ores, and we are not taking into account the fact that those are already a relatively rare and desired type of Ore - for reasons I will later disclose - as a result of which the Ore will not always be available at the resource node, and if it is, it might only feature a third of the total potential resource at the particular node. I am also not taking into account the fact that the Player needs to walk from resource node to resource node, or the fact that the Player needs to spend at least 5 minutes every 3000 Ore collected to go back to town so as to deposit it, because otherwise it will become to heavy to even allow the PC to move.
So leveling up 1 node to its highest possible level will take, in a world of unbelievable fancy, 56 hours. Reminder - there are 4 other nodes that need to be leveled up in relation to mining. Then there are also a bunch of other resource-gathering nodes - let’s say 5 per resource type for a whopping 20 extra. That’s 25 of those… Taking 56 hours in impossible conditions…
Yeah, I might be starting to see a problem here, ladies and gentlemen. But let me dial back a bit - just the funky business with the one specialization - which is what the developers of the game want the Player to have, ONE thing that their Character does (in this hypothetical case Mining). Well, if the entirety of the game is going to be me standing and clicking a resource node - not even engaging in combat - then there’s another problem.
But one might argue it is like Runescape - sure, it could be like Runescape, but that features numbers like 200 hours to maximize a skill (say, Mining), and those are not anywhere near as hypothetical as our 250+ hours. Regardless, the amount of time required to progress is obtuse, and the worst part about it is that the rate keeps slowing down. If the rate was stable, allowing the Player to get a level every 15 minutes, then I would have been inclined to say that, maybe, this is not such a bad design choice.
However, making it so that the Player is more likely to be looking at an hour, if not more (reminder, the 56 hours I whipped up are literally impossible to achieve, it’s at least two times as long, because mining Tier 4 Ore takes more than 1 second per 2 Ore units, and there are 6 Ore units in a Tier 4 resource node, and there are like 10 of those on the maps where the Player can safely grind them, and each takes 100 seconds to reappear), there’s something incredibly wrong with the very basic concept behind Albion’s idea of increasing skills.
It becomes so evident that the game does not want the Player to actually do anything - considering that Tier 5 resources take 450 seconds to respawn, while Tier 6 and higher take 10000 seconds to respawn, and the even higher Tiers are even more obtuse - that I am left almost speechless… And then the reason presents itself. Albion Online features a subscription that provides bonuses. Bonuses, such as increased Fame acquisition… Which cuts down the time needed to get to level 100 of a skill node by around 30%. But that’s not all!
There are also these things called Learning Points. If the Player buys the subscription (Premium), they get 500 of those and also 30 per day, for as long as they maintain their Premium status. Learning Points can be used, whenever the Player reaches the 20% mark of a given skill node’s level, to complete that level instantly. So, the Player can pay for Premium and get an unfair advantage when compared to other Players - because, as a reminder - the higher the PC’s skill levels are, the more efficient they are at doing things. And skills also affect combat, as well as what kind of equipment the PC can wear - particularly high end, strong combat equipment… And this game is, let me add to the pie, an ALWAYS ON Player Versus Player (PVP) game.
As I mentioned, there are safe conditions for gathering resources, and then there are unsafe conditions. The safe areas are those in which Players cannot attack one another - and those are rare, featuring the lowest Tier resources. The other areas? Why, they are those in which the Players can attack each other - AND if the PC dies, it drops ALL of its equipment (in Red Zones) for the killer to take.
But let’s pretend this is not a problem - our hypothetical Mining Player REALLY likes clicking the resource nodes when they pop up and is willing to spend that much time, and also only wants to play safe, so Tier 4 is enough for them.
Well, the Player must actually worry about a bunch of things when doing resource gathering - mainly how much weight is accumulated. The PC has a certain amount of weight that they can carry, which can be increased with equipment. If the PC’s carried weight goes over a certain threshold, a movement speed penalty is incurred. There is a point at which, if the PC’s carried weight goes over the FUNKY threshold, they simply stop being able to move at all.
So the Player must go back and forth from the nearest town, which features an auction house and a storage chest, to deposit the resources they have gathered so as to be able to go and collect more. However, the Player must also take care of their tools - because every time the Player gathers a resource, their tool (which is mandatory for resource gathering) suffers some damage.
If the tool suffers enough damage, it breaks and becomes thoroughly useless - so much so that it cannot even be repaired, and then cannot be sold and must be destroyed. So the Player must also keep an eye on that. But, as previously mentioned, to be able to use equipment and certain tools, the PC needs to have certain skill nodes unlocked.
So, to get to mining Tier 4 Ores, the Player must first engage with all other resource gathering nodes, reach certain points on them so as to be able to get enough resources for crafting, then do crafting until they reach the appropriate skill nodes. If not, then the Player cannot craft or use these particular items.
The same applies for everything else, really. The Player must first unlock a particular skill node to be able to use certain items, let alone craft them, and to do that the Player must engage with all the resource varieties. In the earliest stages of the game, that is not problematic - in fact, it is quite neat and gives a good holistic vibe - but as soon as the Player leaves the tutorial island things become far, far more brutal, slow and bothersome.
Fortunately, all those issues can be solved by visiting the auction house! Other Players have been hard at work digging, cutting, chopping and harvesting all possible resources, and they are selling them for money (Silver). However, if the Player does not have enough Silver, as that is highly likely due to the fact that small amounts of it are obtained by killing enemies and most of it is obtained by trading, the Player can BUY Silver!
Aside from featuring a subscription, Albion Online also features a Premium Currency - Gold! And, with Gold, the Player can buy Silver - a very nice amount of it, too! So, what are we looking at here, me and you, dear reader? The Player can pay to speed up their progression by 30% (via Premium), which also gives them the ability to reduce the amount of Fame they need to accumulate by 80% by using Learning Points to level their skill nodes whenever they reach 20%. In addition to that, any financial troubles are immediately done away with via the acquisition of Gold.
So there’s absolutely no integrity to be found in this game. None, whatsoever, because everything in the game is done for either Silver - which is all the Trading that occurs - or means of acquiring Fame - which is what Premium and Learning Points somewhat invalidate.
What winds up happening is that, to be able to have an enjoyable time playing this game, the Player needs to buy Premium, otherwise they will be forced to go through “the slog”. As an example, rather than having to gather almost 400,000 pieces of Tier 4 Ore, the Player can gather a total of 17,170 Tier 4 Ore and use Learning Points to get to level 100 on that skill node… Which might not work that well, because even with the 500 Learning Points gotten from just buying Premium, it might take a lot of waiting for the daily Learning Points, as it would cost a meager 1,518 Learning Points to get the results I described.
So, actually, this also manages to not work all that well. The game remains a monstrous grind-fest with no redeeming qualities, or at least none mentioned so far, with the only goal in it being to grind… So that one can grind.
Now, let’s get to combat. Combat in this game works in a very interesting way - mainly because of the way the PC gets its abilities. Those are all dependent on the equipment that the PC has. Every item that can be equipped provides a certain set of benefits to the Player, some in the form of stats, others in the form of abilities (be they passive or not). The stats are health, damage done, health regeneration - stuff like that. The abilities are more interesting.
While unequipped, the Item can have its ability changed - in the case of armor, there’s only one ability and the options are typically few. In the case of a weapon, there are four abilities, one of which is a passive ability, the other active (though there may be options for three out of the four, rather than all four).
Equipping that item will then allow the Player to use the selected abilities via their toolbar. Thus, this game does away with gaining power from leveling up or from assigning points in a skill tree, and instead puts all the power of the PC in their equipment. That is very interesting, and, in theory, allows for swapping of plays-tyles at the snap of one’s fingers…
However, it does not actually work like that. The more a certain weapon is used - as those are what determines most of a Player’s abilities - the higher its associated skill level goes. And the higher the skill level is, the stronger the PC is when using that weapon. So, what actually happens is that the Player might get to try a few weapons, they might like the system, but then they will find out that they need to not only reach certain nodes on the skill tree to even use particular weapons, but also that, if they want to be able to stand a chance in this INCREDIBLY CUTTHROAT free-for-all PVP fest, they must focus on one - not just one weapon type, ONE weapon.
That’s just odd. It’s very backwards, when compared to what Albion advertises itself as, and when compared to what the game appears to want to be. There’s some violent contradiction that just makes the game very unpleasant to engage in - aside from it being blatantly pay-to-win without a shadow of a doubt.
Then there is also an entire mechanic that is completely inaccessible for non-Premium Players, that being Farming. It is only available on the Player’s own island, which, in turn, can only be purchased if the Player is a Premium Player, as a result of which that’s just not doable.
There is one thing that could be stated in defense of Albion, but it really is not. Gold can be used to buy Silver, but Silver can also be used to buy Gold. So, in theory, a Player can accumulate enough Silver from trading to afford some Gold, and then with that Gold the Player can buy themselves Premium. Sure, that might be something - but it does take around 70 hours of non-stop chores (because, ultimately, that is what Albion is, safe for its combat system, but then that is also relatively un-engaging and rudimentary) to be able to afford some Premium.
There are other qualities that attempt to reedem the game – but they also cause issues. One of those would be that, to craft an item of a certain Tier, the Player must find a crating station that is on that Tier – and anything from Tier 4 and up can only be found either on the Player Island (built by the Player themselves, as there is a carpentry skill that also takes hundreds of hours to progress in) or in big cities. Those found in the big cities are all placed on slots, which slots can be rented out to guilds/clans/massive conglomerates (mafias) of Players, where these Players then build the crafting stations and can set a fee for using them.
The fee, naturally, is about 10 or 20 times the price to craft the item, as in around 9000 silver, which is just extortionate. What happens is that something neat – Player run economies and shops – turns into something bad, because there’s no protection against monopolies, as a result of which a singe guild rents out all the properties in a city and boom! The Players pay whatever the guild wants them to pay or they do not get to progress.
Similarly, there are big guild related activities – as the game has a faction system (with 5 factions) that can be joined by Players and then certain areas can be taken over by other factions through the actions of a large group of Players, but, again – the commitment required, and the amount of entertainment that can be provided by these activities is very meager when compared to the monstrous ennui that will overwhelm the Player as they go through the process of becoming eligible for them.
Ultimately, Albion sets out to show off some interesting ideas and put them into action, but fails incredibly spectacularly. Sure, in concept the immense potential for growth in every possible direction is cool, and the ability to swap playstyles by just changing one’s weapon is neat, but the way it is executed is just dreadful. Coupled with its predatory monetization practices, which purposefully make the game bad, and then allow for fixes to the problems to be sold, is obtuse.
Albion also makes the mistake of having 2 whole servers, one based in the US and one based in Eastern Asia, leaving European and African Players to pick out of two very laggy options for their game experience.
A wasted opportunity, really, because I can see how this concept could work. Also, the community is horrendous. 1/3
Presentation
Albion Online is spectacular. It makes use of a very stylized, very particular approach to presenting itself, mainly in regards to its visuals, as a result of which it manages to provide the Player with vast, open plains and dense forests that look as though they were painted with the most wondrous pastels.
The Characters, themselves, also look really nice, with a lot of armor sets and vanity items being present. The amount of customization that can be done on one’s appearance is very impressive, and if all the monetization in the game was restricted to just the cosmetics that are on sale, it might have actually been more fun to play, too, but for the moment the only joy one can derive from it is by looking.
And I earnestly mean look, for this game is fantastic. All the environments are breathtaking in some regard, be it because of the lived-in vibe they give off, or because of the funky, cluttered and intensely detailed settlements or towns. Everything in the game just breathes life, and it’s magical in a most entertaining manner.
There’s little-to-no voice acting, which is not that much of a problem, and the sound effects, coupled with the music, are more than a pleasant addition to the astounding visuals. Lastly, there’s a bit of bravery on their willingness to add a particular slider into Character creation, which I approve of wholeheartedly.
Now, in regards to the game’s tutorial, things are quite good, but they could be better. Not exclusively due to the tutorial, but… Some information is not all that well conveyed to the Player, some things are kept obscure - such as what the particulars of using higher Tier tools to gather lower Tier resources are, or the reason why traveling with a boat, unless naked and carrying nothing, costs the Player obtuse amounts of Silver. Even though those issues nip at one’s heels, they’re very inconsequential. 3/3
Story
The only story that exists in Albion Online is the premise for the game. Aside from that, there is potential for emergent stories to be told, but that type of storytelling relies on good gameplay. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I am afraid that the answer is a NO, it does not get the Legendary Point, even though I was tempted to do so because of the visuals. Alas, it is far poorly designed for me to be able to do so. 0/1
Conclusion
4/10. Albion Online is a beautiful game that takes what Runescape did and makes it worse. Thus, for fans of Runescape who do not have enough tedium from their Real-Life-Jobs, this might work. For anyone else, however, I would advise not playing it at all. It’s a game that wants the Player to pay monthly, but it is also a game that does not respect the Player’s time.
In the bag of mediocrity it goes, very pretty, but very lackluster in every other regard. Dust shall be its fate.