Greedy Goblin

Friday, March 24, 2017

Albion: transporting in PvP zones

So far it seems I'm staying in Albion Online. If you want to try it out, here is my referral link! Warning: The game is still in beta, so it can change. "Change" in video game development is a politically correct term for "nerfed to the ground to cater to paying morons and slackers". Continue on your own risk, don't blame me! The game currently looks the most fitting to the "player can make an impact on the game world" hope. This promotional video tells what the game is promised to be. Of course there is a chance that it will become a "get everything from running piss-easy instanced dungeons", but one can hope. Besides playing, I make myself useful reporting bugs and making suggestions.

So, after getting millions in days by buying and selling in the safe zone, I went more risky. Mostly because there isn't real risk, as the game is in beta and all progress will be wiped before release. So I figured out to do a transport run to the middle city of the royal continent. You see, the game World is huge and most land is free PvP, capturable zone. The southern continent is not:

The red dots are the starter towns. The green dots are the nearby cities. There the workshops are player owned and everyone else pays tax to the owners. You can travel between them in safety. The black dot on the other hand is Caerleon, a safe city in the middle of red zones. There are 4 zones: in blue you can't be attacked, in yellow you can be robbed from backpack items, in red you can be robbed of gear, in black the robber isn't even penalized. You guessed, the prices in Caerleon are pretty high. So I figured I bring some stuff from Lymhurst, the green dot on the right.

The plan was simple: I loaded the cheapest horse with materials which are cheap in the safe zones but expensive in Caerleon. If I die, I lose 30K. If I arrive, I make over 100K. It went spectacularly, I not only arrived, but did so by travelling trough hostiles. On the picture you can see the criminal character count, next to the mail reporting my first stupidly overpriced sell:
The trick: whenever I saw a baddie, I turned my horse towards him. He ran so fast into the woods as his sprint spell allowed him. How could he know that all I'm armed with are tier 2 armor, a harvesting sickle and 500 leather?! He had expensive gear to lose, he came to gank a miner or woodchopper, not to fight someone who seems to be looking for a fight!

10 comments:

maxim said...

I wonder if that "run to the woods" effect is going to persist for long.
It is certainly fun while it lasts, though :D

Bosh said...

Charging right at someone to avoid them is hilarious. There weren't any groups of PvPers? That seems strange...

Hanura H'arasch said...

Damn, you should've posted that referral links yesterday. Anyway, let the fun begin.

Anonymous said...

@david

The majority of PVPers are in the black zone since the punishment for PVP on the royal continent is crippling right now.

Looch said...

You can inspect anyone's equipment: I would say they avoided you because you were on horse (not carrying much) and with T2 equip (not worth anything).

On the other hand, you can equip (T3 is proper for this) with weapons/armor made for escaping gank situations. Spear was good choice for this.

Gevlon said...

@maxim: it will persist while "pvpers" are looking for miners to gank

@David: groups of PvP-ers are in black zones where the PvP is.

@Hanura: I couldn't. The idea of referral link came when I saw your friend request.

@Looch: inspecting takes time. When a horse is galopping towards you, time is something you don't have. I have zero chance to escape if knocked of horse, as I'd be 200% overloaded.

Anonymous said...

"Change" in video game development is a politically correct term for "nerfed to the ground to cater to paying morons and slackers".

you write sheets in one go and never change or add stuff in them?
you never edit your posts, no rewrite of paragraphs?
you use paragraphs from former posts and change sentences arround to make them more clear. so you nerf your own text to cater to M&S so they understand your message better.

In bigger software some parts of the product are in prototype stage others in near releasable stage. not only in code but in design (thinking/idea space) also. some parts need iteration and inspiration. your arrow chart picture will spark some inspiration in somebody for sure. and some parts will still be shit after release because they don't had the hours to spend on some parts and lead called the shots on them.

Good you report bugs and give feedback, because that is all it is about in pre-release. if your bugs and sugestions will be prioritzed is another story.

Gevlon said...

@Anon: when I edit my posts, I "bugfix". It happens with games too. But then perfectly functioning elements are changed, and NEVER for more challenging or group oriented or less rewarding.

Anonymous said...

Sometime there are "perfectly functioning elements" out of the box pre-release that made it into release. Mostly not really dev related stuff like lore or animations. all betas and some alphas had bugs till flat out bad design decisions, that got overhauled or somewhat polished and in some cases just released.

and NEVER for more challenging or group oriented or less rewarding.
Sure. This is obvious. the hardcore-gamer isn't a profitible market. so people sell the illusion and cater after release more towards those who will increase revenue.
But to get to that stage of fiddling arround your product to cater perfectly towards your targets ... you will have to release. and pre-release is a hectik and very changing time and has mostly nothing to do with catering but more with getting the thing runable for release.

Looch said...

It's a good point - tho different gear and tier have different graphic so you should be able to know what another player's wearing without the inspection button. That's easy with armors/mounts etc.

Any particular reason you are in Lymhurst? It's the less populated safe town and yet far from Caerleon (4 squares) while i.e. Sterling has double the population and only 2 squares from Caerleon.