Worst MMO Ever? - Albion Online

Albion online it's a Sandbox MMO advertised by an old man with a croaky voice it's a game where you are what you wear but I don't remember wearing a sexy beast it's a game about crafting I'm sorry I can't keep that up it's a game about crafting making things fighting dying and losing those things then crafting them again it's also one of the most successful crowdfunded MMORPG projects in history raising almost 10 million dollars and then doing something even more impressive actually existing but with this intense PVP focused end game is it actually worth your time if you're going to inevitably die anyway let's find out welcome I'm Josh Drive Hayes and this is worst MMO ever a series where I play every MMO game I can find in a journey to find the worst now this episode is special because it's sponsored now you may be thinking who's dumb enough to sponsor a half hour long critique about Albion online especially when my critique isn't always you know company friendly stop making good franchises into bad mobile games what the balls is this so we head into this Village and chat to the world's strongest bits of rope what's that I see oh yes it's the bottom of the barrel I knew we'd get here eventually well let's keep digging and see where we end up so with this kind of critique is the expected standard and my refusal to censor my scripts who's going to cough up the money to sponsor them strangely Albion online themselves were here's how that conversation went Albion online sent me an email saying hey we'd love you to make a video about our game to which I replied are you sure you want to do this they replied with of course we do you can say whatever you like as long as you're honest and mentioned there's a new server opening up to which I replied are you sure you want to do this after an agonizingly long wait they sent back a rather apprehensive but legally binding yes so let's dive into the world of Albion which has a new server opening up and if you do end up wanting to give it a go there's a tracking Link in the video description which lets them know that you came from this video first off Albion is a free cross-platform MMO available on PC Mobile and tablets and all players use the same server kind of like RuneScape I played on the PC version and while you can tell the UI is definitely made with Mobile in mind it still looks and plays fine as a standalone PC game onto character creation Albion is stylized to look chunky so all the human characters look like the human form of Shrek or morph actress hit the gym for a few years I go with a thong so small that'll get me banned on Twitch and sigh at my name being taken again I swear every game fine you know what I don't need the haze bit Josh Strife is good enough game starts and we're washed up on a beach so Albion online is a top-down click to move hack and slash with intense focus on Gathering and you can't move the camera it's rather reminiscent of Diablo you've got your objective shown in the top right and we start by just moving and talking to this other survivor of the Shipwreck and there's a handy dandy white highlighted area to guide you they send us up the lighthouse to look for some enemies and honestly it's a lovely View and the chunky Graphics very quickly grow on you I've always said style lasts longer than attempts at photorealism and Albion does have a very defined chunky model with flat colors instead of complex textures style it's recognizable and that is vital for marketing from up here we spot the enemies on the bridge and I like this it's showing the advantage of having a vantage point and doing enemy strength Recon before charging in we also get told about our first Hotbar ability Sprint now abilities are interesting because they're entirely tied to your equipped items and we'll look at this more later but this does mean when you take your pants off you forget how to run I mean we've all been there one minute you're sprinting then your Trails has fall off and now you're walking we need a weapon so we're told to collect six Stone and six logs there are resources all around and you just click together and you'll often get multiple of that resource per gather attempt and then we interact with the blacksmith to open the crafting UI and this is the real meat and potatoes of Albion I've got no issues with the UI it shows all the relevant information such as resources required time take and XP gained an item mate it's fine I opens our own country we equip the sword and then choose which ability you wanted to have now items can have various abilities and you can freely swap them anytime you're not in combat some skills focus on Direct damage others are crowd control others heal some items have passive Buffs or debuffs and as there are only other two or three choices per slot it's enough choice to feel impactful without feeling overwhelming get given a shield run to the bridge and fight some enemies left click is auto attack I went with an AOE cleave for group combat so we kill some stuff get some Fame and now we unlock the Destiny Board which is basically a simplified version of the skill tree from Path of Exile and also what you'll be working toward for most of your Albion life doing basically anything games you Fame and you'll gain Fame in whatever it is that you're doing fighting gets combat Fame but it's broken down even more if you're fighting with a bow you'll get bow Fame if it's a short bow you'll get short bow Fame whenever you gather anything that's Fame at Gathering when you process or craft that's Fame too honestly there is more Fame in this game than the London West End as you gain Fame you'll progress from the center along one of these tendrils from General to specific frame example all combat skills start here you unlock this node by killing anything and then this node is only one out of one so its only purpose is to lead to the next and one of the possible next being this node kill two tier two creatures with a novice bow oh yeah all enemies and Albion are broken down into tiers you won't know exactly what is what tier until you fight it and just start to remember again the node is one out of one so leading to here Beau fighter you'll see this node is one out of one hundred so you gain Fame here by killing tier 3 creatures with a novice bow or better and every level gained here increases item power to all bows by 0.2 and gives extra rewards as you level up even more like passive Buffs spells and unlocks the ability to use higher level bows but then that node itself breaks down on the tendrils even further into the exact specific type of bow you're using and these notes cap out at 120 despite the graphic here only saying 100. fix it Albion but wait there's more maybe you've gained some Fame in a skill but not yet reached the full level of that Fame level that's okay you see this line here once you've passed that in Fame you can skip the rest of that level by spending learning points how do you gain learning points well if you're a free player you can get 10 per day by completing daily free missions or if you remember you get 30 a day guaranteed we'll look into members benefits more later basically literally anything you do will be adding Fame somewhere and progressing this Destiny Board and every weapon proficiency bonus armor equippability skill or passive buff is gained here the Destiny Board icon is also always on your screen and gives suggestions for what you could be doing even if you're not sure it's like hey you suck at this skill go and do it and you're like well okay then my main issue with the Destiny Board this is the maximum zoom out you have to click and drag around please for the love of thought Sterling let me zoom out more cross the bridge and we're into the tutorial area and honestly it's packed this is just the opening Zone not even connected to the agile main game this is the tutorial and it's so busy maybe everyone is helping and working together sharing a sense of adventure or camaraderino no everyone's arguing about evolution in the general chat never change internet never change we're given some silver and told to buy a mule from the Marketplace it's pretty much the only thing you can afford right now so we equip the mountain Mount up with a and I must say I do like how the hotkeys are bound to qwer ADF one and two it's a very dense and usable layout s isn't bound because that's automatically stop all of your movement which is useful when you're about to run into a PVP gank Squad so we've got a mount we're told we need tools tools are made at stations and they need resources so we go and gather with so many players and name plates the screen is getting a bit busy thankfully there's a UI scale slider and off we go together now Gathering means finding specific things this means we need a map to know where those things are and this is where Albion is both overwhelming and excels now pay attention because there will be a quiz God it's like I'm back in my teacher days should probably put on the Twee jacket with leather elbow patches okay class settle down and we can begin pressing M brings up the world map and Albion is Big the southern land mass is known as the Royal continents when you've finished the tutorial that you'll start at one of the five coastal towns here each Town being within one of the game's five specific biomes Forest Highlands mountains steps and swamps like a knockoff Magic the Gathering Albion is not a single open world the towns are Central hubs and the individual location maps are medium-sized Adventure zones again similar to Path of Exile along with biomes Albion has five major resource types wood Stone hide ore and fiber but each biome only contains three specific resources so Highland zones contain stone or and wood but not hide or Fiber swamps have fiber wooden hide but not stone or ore I know I'm giving you a lot of information and it really is like being back in school and I can see some of you are drifting off code bullet pay attention stop passing notes to asmon Gold each resource itself is broken down into tears from one to eight higher being better higher tiered resources make higher tiered equipment and are found in higher tiered Maps so from the world map you can click on any specific region to get a local map of that region this will show you which resources are present and what tier those resources are from minimum to maximum the local Maps also have small signposts and when you cursor over them it shows you the tier biome type and Zone type of the connecting map which is lovely so we've looked at biomes resources and tears what about Zone types well that's related to The Diamond color you've got blue yellow red and black blue means no PVP you are safe here unless you're specifically doing faction PVP which as a new player you won't be Rasputin stop flicking paper at dug dog yellow zones are more dangerous you can choose to flag yourself a PVP and then attack anyone if you're not flagged and get attacked and killed which can still happen you won't lose your stuff you'll just get knocked down and lose some durability on your equipped items these are moderate risk zones so you're basically safe but can be griefed if you're collecting resources that somebody else wants now in a handy touch when you're in any PVP Zone the amount of PVP flagged players is shown down by your mini-map red zones are full loot PVP you can still choose to remain unflagged if you wish and if a player kills you while you're unflagged that player will lose some reputation but regardless of whether you're flagged or not if you die in a Red Zone you will drop everything you are carrying who is chewing gum well I hope you brought enough for the whole class oh you did well played spiff well played and finally black Zone are only accessible from a city Outland portal and make up the vast majority of the game's Northern land mass being every single map on the North continent black zones are full PVP no reputation loss for killing anyone full Loot on death the higher the PVP risk of the Zone more often the higher tier resources it will contain now it sounds complex but it ends up being quite a nice flowchart I need tier 2 hide and wood so I open the map find a tier 3 Forest map connected to me which has both tier 2 resources I need and it's a blue zone so I'm safe from PvP off I go to gather with that stuff gathered I now need copper and cotton and this needs a mountain region and thankfully there's one connected to the starting town and with all the copper gathered we refine the oars into bars then the wood into planks and after processing all the raw materials from two biomes into usable resources we hand them in and fix the ship next Quest go and steal a map from the local Bandit Hideout it's important to remember while Albion is currently giving me guidance this is just the tutorial in the main Overworld there are no quests or main story it's sandbox but it's done something I really like it's still giving you the visual motivation to go and train something by the Destiny Board suggestions it's a constant reminder of you could be doing this why not go and do this then you're like you know what yeah I will do that steaming the map and I bump into some other players and right this is where the competition starts everything in Albion online's Overworld is shared enemies and resources this means yes if you see someone struggling in combat you can go and help them it also means if you're Gathering resources in the yellow zone and someone else wants them they can just keep knocking you out until you finally leave or call your friends to come and help you and with a very healthy steam player base competition for resources is fierce but as we know steam numbers don't always tell the whole story because many players play through the game's proprietary launcher or on mobile so I did a little investigating like a terminally online Sherlock Holmes Albion online has a jobs site there are currently six positions being hired for and on the job description of community manager at the bottom they state that Albion online sees around 900 000 total players per month and 2 million monthly website visits which is an insanely successful game why are you not leading with this information that's so many people playing on a single server game man it sure would be swell if there was a new server where people could start building guilds and taking over the world early like the Eastern server launching on the 15th right that's my contractual obligation fulfilled Quest tick I do have to say most games have very easy early combat Albion is much more balanced enemies even these tutorial ones have charge attacks or AOE attacks and the circle fills in red and you dodge but the timing required to dodge is actually very tight the early game enemies are not afraid to hurt you and I respect that now I've heard people say that Albion is a cross between Diablo and RuneScape and while I can see all of those influences on a graphical or combat level when you look into the geopolitical nature of the guild system faction and territory control losing everything on death and having to gather lots of stuff from various places you realize those comparisons are mostly surface level personality wise it's like RuneScape and Diablo had a kid but then abandoned it and the kid was then found and raised by Ultima and Eve online it may look like it's biological PVE parents but it has the bloodthirsty Cutthroat nature of its real PVP parents hand in the map go and make some armor now I'm thinking can I just sell some resources to the NPC shops and then buy some stuff and no you can't because NPC shops don't buy anything off you ever all sales go through the player driven Auction House raw materials process materials weapons armor mounts anything you can buy or sell you're doing it with another player and placing an item for sale has a 2.5 setup fee relative to the value of the item and any sales you make will take an eight percent transaction fee so it's also a silver sink for the game but perhaps the most interesting touch while each small town and big city does have an auction house they are not globally linked everyone is local only so those towns without easy access to specific resources like mountain towns that are low on wood there's a great deal of money to be made by selling resources from halfway across the world there instead of where they're abundant which creates trade routes but there's one exception to this no NPC shops rule one place where you can sell player made stuff back to the game directly and that's through the black market held in the main city of care Leon and this system is actually really interesting if you kill an enemy or open a chest you'll get an item drop and you'll sometimes see it's been crafted by a player but how is that possible when you just got it as a drop well the city of Kalyan is entirely surrounded by Red PVP maps so even getting to it is dangerous and when you sell an item to the black market that item gets placed onto the potential drop table of a monster or loot table from a chest for someone else to get meaning it's being distributed back out into the game somewhere this also means the higher demand for drops from Monsters or loot from chests as in the more people killing monsters or the more people opening chests the higher the price the black market will offer you for better gear so even monster looters effectively player made stuff distributed by the game this means when you've crafted items yes you can sell them to a local Auction House risk free or you can take the chance and take the trip through several dangerous red PVP zones potentially getting killed along the way just to get a better price for those items from the black market which is a lovely trade-off of convenience and safe versus risky and rewarding now Another Touch I love when you open any crafting interface you'll see what you can craft but some items are in red you haven't unlocked these yet and some items are just really high level but you can still click on the item and see a UI and on that UI you can scroll down and see a button which if you click will link you to the exact Destiny Board unlock node you need to have to either craft or wear the item and because of the linear nature of the Destiny Board you can just follow it back toward the center to see what you need to do to unlock that path I need 32 stiff leather so I gather 32 regular leather perform my sexiest dance and then turn the leather into Ranger armor oh yeah there are three armor types heavy plate medium leather and light robes heavy has more defense but gives no offensive passive Buffs medium is equal pass defense and offense and light has bad defense but gives offensive passive Buffs and you can mix and match bits as you like kill some Heretics in this local base to cause a distraction and now I'll fix chip can sail away and honestly I am really liking the sound design sword hits feel strong blood splatter is gooey and full steps are heavy the distance shouting and crash away is the sound effects feel as chunky and thick as the graphics look and it lets the gameplay a lot of weight fights feel satisfying kill all the Heretics call the ship hop on and now pick a starting place I'll go for the forest because I'm feeling the ranger style playthrough leaving the tutorial for the mainland you are given three days premium upgrade for free it's just bonus experience and more learning points and stuff and we'll look at the shop and premium specifically later talk to this guy and get a mission stroll through town now missions are like mini quests they're not essential at all they're completely optional but they do help you get accustomed to stuff perhaps the most limiting factor and probably a reflection of the sandbox focus of Albion as opposed to the theme park you can only have one Mission active at a time so there's no accept all the quest and then go and do them here I do however find the player pathfinding needs some work your avatar will always walk in in a straight line even if there's an object in the way it's okay Albion even RuneScape struggled with fences for the longest time so far Albion is basically a Sandbox which is hand-holdy enough to give you the skills and confidence needed to survive before letting you find your own way which is great the term sandbox often means make your own fun create your own story but far too many sandbox games don't understand that just like a child in an actual sandbox the first time you go into one basic structure at the start can help when you're a kid going to a Sandbox someone usually hands you a bucket in spade and shows you how you can fill the bucket up and then turn it upside down and lift it up to create a cool castle in the shape of the bucket or if you grew up somewhere Posh you had those badass Digger chairs on the edge of the sand pit and whoever sat on them was King bad parents just yeated their kid through the air onto the cigarette butt-filled damps and then wondered why that kid wasn't building the Taj Mahal Freedom within a game is great and Discovery is great but that Discovery should be about what you can do with the skills that are given to you it shouldn't be about about discovering what those skills are to begin with after exploring town I'm told to go into a royal Expedition these are linear instanced dungeons either Solo or small group focused you go through a portal in any town or city select a difficulty then just progress there's no need to gather resources here just kill stuff similar to Diablo's Rifts this also lets me see that combat is a bit more fleshed out with enemies having abilities and skills which create damaging AOE areas finishing an expedition gets me a book of experience the next few missions I take are all about working backwards I need to equip a full set of tier 3 gear this means I need tier 3 materials and tier 3 materials can only be gathered with a tier 2 or greater Gathering tool of that type so it's all about stacking progress and while you may spend hours Gathering and crafting stuff and then risk it all on one game of PVP and lose and start again at your Beginnings not only will Rudyard Kipling consider you a man you'll be gaining Fame every step of the way so even restarting feels at least somewhat productive so my adventure now is just find Chestnut logs and I like this there's no epic storyline built into Albion no Calamity facing the world there's not an endless treadmill of cosmic deities each more deadly than the last leading to power creep burnout it's just find a tree it's one of those games where the interpersonal drama and Guild rivalry make it interesting to play it's a game which like many other sandboxes relies on players to actually be fun but unlike many many many other sandbox attempts Albion actually has the players required to make it fun it's very much channeling the energy of EverQuest or Ultima Online yes the game itself is decent enough to stand alone but the game itself is better when used as set dressing for communicating with other people whether that's local chat World chat Guild or PVP and I think it's managed to keep these players in large parts thanks to having a basic framework for people like me who like being shown what to do before being told okay see how far you can take those skills there's no doubt it's definitely sandbox focused and making your own fun is the name of the game but it still understands the entire hence retention power of having achievements and small goals and trackable stats and optional missions and quests and it's almost cheeky in its invisible guiding hand luring theme park players like me in with structure and focused progression and stacking skills and before I even know it I'm off Gathering because I've decided I want something damn you Albion you've made me enjoy playing a Sandbox game God I feel dirty so you really can just spend your time Gathering and crafting and selling stuff to PVP players one of the guys in chat described Albion as a lot of low intensity Gathering and crafting to supply brief moments of high intensity PVP lava rinse repeat so let's rip the Band-Aid off and talk about membership because Albion is free but premium exists you can buy it weekly at five pounds a week or 15 pounds a month or 160 pound a year if you're feeling Rich premium players get more learning points and more Focus which is yet another crafting system we'll look at later and more Fame you basically get more of everything but in a nice touch you can also buy premium with in-game currency now it's not cheap at 17 million silver for a month but it is possible or you can also spend gold which is another premium currency which can be bought with real money or bought on the auction house for silver but wait Mr Hayes I hear you cry and then I remind you put your hand up and ask nicely we're in class doesn't that mean you can spend real money on gold and then sell the gold for silver on the auction house and then use the silver to buy whatever you need from the auction house why yes imaginary student yes it does in fact if we sort the market board right now by price we can see an elder druid's robe for sale for 150 million silver now in theory you could just buy gold with real money sell the gold until you have that much and then buy the Rope if you're curious one gold is currently worth 4 654 silver which means you would need 32 230 bits of gold which would cost you about 200 pounds if you were to buy it from the shop but remember to even equip this robe you need to check the equippable link and see that you'll need to be level 100 cloth robe fighter on the Destiny Board which will take weeks of grinding so well yes you can buy a lot of high-end gear through a process starting with real money you do still need to put the work in to be able to use that gear the rest of the shop is mostly cosmetic including this nice little number for how much 50 Quid at least take me out to dinner first Albion so I'm traveling along looking for some wood grow up and then I find a building with a usage be so let's look at player-owned buildings the cities are busy made up of game-owned buildings and then player-owned land plots these land plots are bought by players through a blind auction and these auctions happen every four weeks now when you own a plot you can build a resource processing station on it and then charge players for using it generating income for you and once the four weeks is up you can either re-bid to try and keep your own plot or just let someone else buy it now I'm not normally a fan of player owned land in any game because it always gets bought up early and then dominated by a few big guilds but the four-week cycle here at least means those guilds have to remain active and constantly keep spending in order to stay in power because you don't know what someone else has bid in the auction so you're always encouraged to bid over the odds for your own spot the usage fees on some of these plots though are a bit of a joke you pay more silver the better your attempted crafting item is and some guilds just charge the maximum which rinses new players of any real means of advancing using their plots now the land ownership system with maps and posts and PVP stuff gets a bit more complex than I can really go into but it's a player control world and it at least seems for now to be healthy you know what I'm gonna travel to a Red Zone just to see how dangerous they really are and I mean how many people would actually kill a low-level player on the starting donkey oh right turns out most people will and now I've lost my Mount fantastic right where do I get another thankfully there is an extensive Wiki and it seems you can make horses with animal handling which needs farming which needs carrot seeds of course horses are made of carrots so where do you plant carrots well if you've got at least seven days of Premium you can buy a player-owned private island a safe place to do all the general life skills cool thing is if you buy the island while you've got premium it remains usable even if your premium runs out I'm not going to buy an island so what about the auction house the cheapest mount in here is 6000 silver and I'm short so it's a case of grind bag or Joiner Guild you know this big city is a bit too much for me I'm gonna head back to my Woodland Retreat and then I logged off for the night and when I came back I was actually looking forward to doing some Gathering and processing because yes it's slow but it feels rewarding the thing with full loop PVP games is they only really work if it's easy to rebuild after dying if you spend months working on some special equipment and then lose it all that's a quit moment right there yeah yes it feels fantastic for whoever got the item but the player that made it isn't motivated to play again but if you spend a day gearing up go adventure and then die and lose everything it's only a day to recover I haven't spoke to a few PVP focused players and they say that it's normally not even a day most people bulk or batch make armor items and weapons so when they die they just put the same stuff on again and go back out it seems most casual PVP players use low to mid-level gear the ultra high level Ultra expensive stuff is almost exclusively used for high level bossing or special Guild events I can imagine the late game is a bit more risky but for now dying feels annoying but not quit the game levels of annoying which is what most other PVP focused games have so I grind some resources and then my ex brakes item durability my old friend you should have stayed in Morrowind but no somehow you persist another nice mechanic is all items have weight and being overweight doesn't stop you from moving it just slows you down and you've got more extreme categories where the low gets more intense but you're never actually stopped so yeah in theory you can transport an entire bank's worth of stuff in one trip to another bank because like the auction house banks are not linked but carrying everything in one go is difficult slow and dangerous like taking every shopping bag from the car into the house in one trip I do a few more expeditions and as the chat seems to be active I ask the genuine question what keeps you playing Albion and I get the expected answers grind silver social connections but mostly It's a combination of relaxed gameplay and high interpersonal drama because Albion only has one server with the second coming soon you recognize people guilds get known players gain reputations oh here's another system focus when you craft something if you have high focus there's a chance you'll make multiple items or have the raw materials you used returned to you crafting while you have focus is the best way to make profit and focus refills if you're a premium player and here's another system and uh okay right I'm starting to see the issues here this is the study system the game's items once you've crafted something instead of using it or selling it you can study it this destroys the item but gives you increased Fame in relation to the item but you'll notice I've said here's another system a lot Albion online is essentially a very simple game with many many many very simple systems all layered together which when you look at as an entire whole feels very complicated nothing individually is but the collective is focus isn't complex studying isn't complex biomes tears zones PVP flagging premium none of them by themselves would confuse someone when explained to them but good Lord there's a lot and when you try and explain everything to someone at once it's overwhelming doing some more missions I get given a tier 3 dungeon map and this unlocks a hidden dungeon out in the world somewhere and this dungeon interestingly doesn't have an in-game map and also the first time I die to a boss it's not actually that bad because you literally just get back up and carry on kinda takes away some of the thrill of a boss fight if I can just keep going until low wind doesn't it finally I gather enough silver to buy another mule and the quest sends me back to the main city and I end up riding alongside this guy and he doesn't know me and I don't know him and he doesn't know it but in my mind we are racing and all he's a crafty one skilled Rider taking the racing lines hugging the corners clearly he knows the road well a worthy opponent suck it loser you fell off L plus ratio I win now back in the city I'm running around and I hear the player Island seller shout this very important piece of Legal Information remember your island is tax deductible well that's legally binding when hmrc asks me what this massive chunk of deducted taxes on my year-end form I'm going to tell them I bought an island and you told me it was fine but there's still one place I've not gone yet to the biggest land mass the full PVP Zone the northern outlands to reach the outlands you have to use a realm gate from any of the major cities and this will teleport you to the associated Outpost in the northern Realms now if you get into Albion online it's inevitable that at some point you'll end up here it's where the highest level resources are found and it's the biggest land mass so let's go every map here except the landing zones is a black skulled PVP Zone but in a cool touch leaving any of the safe landing zones lets you interact with a magical invisibility spell which lasts for two minutes so you can run into the wilds and avoid being insta-killed interestingly entering a black Zone gives the achievement it's dark here and only 10 of steam players have this which actually is more than I would have expected in fact scrolling through the global achievements on Steam a surprising amount are quite common it's almost a shame the assault and enemy territory is sitting at 0.1 percent because that would probably be quite a fun experience so I open the map and zoom out and I spot this massive demon it's probably a PVE challenge these wandering bosses seem to move around and probably give some decent rewards now I know I can't kill it but I could at least see it maybe and this would mean running across several black zones avoiding aggressive enemies and players so you know what let's try while running I do notice the frequency of tiered resources being special versions of themselves is increasing green glowing stuff is uncommon blue is rare certain recipes require better versions of a certain tier and the lore of rare resources would tempt even the most cowardly of Crafters eventually after Crossing five different maps running away from aggressive NPCs being chased by Wolves sneaking around player-owned castles the demon map is the next map over we are so close to seeing this massive monstrosity and I get killed by some guy called daraish thanks mate ruin the video detention see me after class so Albion online it's got a lot going for it which is a good thing but it's also got a lot going for it which could be an overwhelming thing and while each system makes sense on its own trying to remember what everything does related to everything else at once is quite overwhelming taken back to its right core it's a gathering and crafting game with PVP to gain control of important Gathering and crafting places it's relaxing to play unless you're going for the rare stuff in the more dangerous zones it looks great it sounds great and it does feel rewarding on a gameplay Loop level because it is a Sandbox and it lets players enjoy the sandbox strengths but it hasn't lost the strength of a framework for players who like a bit of structure honestly I'll probably keep playing it for a while if only to gather and craft in the safe zones maybe run a royal Expedition or two I enjoy those gameplay Loops but I'm not a fully converted PVP guy not yet give it a few months though and maybe I think it's important to mention while in this video I've played quite self-sufficiently Gathering and crafting my own gear because runescape's Iron Man mode has ruined me there are many many players who only do combat they're getting silver from Expeditions or killing rare enemies and then buy the equipment they need instead of crafting it themselves and then they'll go and do PvP with it there are probably players out there with maxed out combat Destiny boards who don't even know what a hatchet is or where the armor they're wearing even came from they'd look at you funny if you asked where the lumber mill is they think fiber is just a fast internet thing so don't look at this and think you've got to go and craft I do it because I find it enjoyable but if you find killing enemies enjoyable and buying the stuff that I've crafted for you that's fine too and that's the Bell okay class pack your bags up your next class is with the professor he'll be explaining why you should buy singles so to end this review I'll award Albion online a minus plays well with others Compton build can seem easily distracted needs to stop killing people when they're trying to find big demons out of 10. cheers for watching and thank you again to Albion Online for being brave enough to sponsor this video without censoring it if you want to give the game a go and enjoy the new server use the link in the video description there are also links to patreon Twitch Twitter and their Discord and as always have a great day

Channel: Josh Strife Hayes

Views: 1,272,552

Keywords: mmo podcast, mmo discussion, mmo design, mmorpg youtuber, mmo news

Id: ESUfnD6KuCg

Length: 32min 25sec (1945 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/AstroZombie29]

The gamble from the developpers paid off... I had no idea this game even existed and now im playing and loving it.

Its everything I wanted V Rising to be but failed at

[u/Ijustwannagamecmon]

I was just watching this and came to see if there was a subreddit for finding a guild in this game. I think I'll try this mmo, though I haven't stuck with many of them.

[u/Acidlord-X]

When he said Albion is the child of Ultima Online and EVE, a tear came to my eye. 3 of my favorite MMOs of all time.

[u/Fuhcew]

Great job SBI

[u/Mishirene]

I was surprised he reviewed it. Haven't finished watching yet but I am glad it got an A. Albion is easily the best mmorpg that is actually an mmorpg that I've ever played.

[u/woptzz]

I alredy can predict where hes most critism is gonna land :D

[u/jobinski22]

If you like PvP, this is the best MMO ever made.

[u/deluvilla]

Perfect timing since I finally get to play this game in 2days, any tips for newbies guys?? So excited!!!

[u/LuckyLuckLucker]

Props to sponsoring your own product to be in a "Worst MMO ever" video 🤣 awesome