2020 was Albion's biggest year yet, with numerous patches and updates, a host of major new features, and an ever-growing player population. In the final Dev Talk of the year, Game Director Robin Henkys looks back at the past year in the world of Albion before looking ahead to what's coming in 2021.
To take the year-end survey mentioned in the video, click here.
No time to watch the video, or prefer a written summary? Then read on...
2020: Albion's Biggest Year Yet
The past year brought some major changes, improvements, and new features to the world of Albion:
Complete Outlands overhaul
Introduction of Hideouts
Open-World Territory Battles
Avalonians and Elite dungeons
Crystal League
Avalonian Weapons and Armor
Roads of Avalon
Wardrobe Skins
Corrupted Dungeons
Outlands Banks
Updated UIs
2 new languages
Combat Balance Improvements
Mobile improvements: New mobile HUD and control scheme, auto-updating, beta of the Google Play Store version
20v20 Crystal League battles and other Season 11 adjustments
In total we released 29 updates and patches with the majority happening out of our homes. Albion now consistently has over 500,000 active players every month, and player numbers are still growing.
Looking Forward to 2021
Major changes coming in the next year include:
A complete Faction Warfare rework to bring open-world warfare to every player
Improving Hellgates to make fair, smaller-scale PvP widely accessible and rewarding
Loadouts, which allow you to save, share and quick-equip item sets on your character
Improvements to the open world and world design of Albion:
Reworking the fundamental building blocks of the world
Improving visual quality while reducing dead ends and nonsensical layouts
Improving open-world locations like large static dungeons, making them high-value hotspots
Making treasures appear less predictably to trigger smaller-scale fights as intended
Improving the world map with more information about ongoing activities
Quality-of-Life Improvements:
Loadouts for quick-equipping items
Additional functionality to quick-buy Loadouts from Marketplaces
Adding better information about actual costs to crafting UIs
Tackling long-standing convenience issues like a “Use All” functionality for Tomes and Silver bags
Combat improvements:
Giving each type of mount, even non-rare mounts, their own spells and abilities
Further expansion of equipment choices available to players
Mobile version:
2021 will be the year Albion Online officially releases for phones and tablets
Will launch on both iOS and the Google Play Store
Additional goals:
Long-needed Castle improvements
Siege equipment and defensive structures
Roaming mob improvements
Additional content and exploration goals for the Roads of Avalon
Game systems:
Expansion of options and visual improvements for Destiny Board
Trade contracts allowing players to offer Silver for item delivery
Revisiting the role of laborers and offering additional features and variety on player islands
Legendary item crafting to leave a permanent mark in the world of Albion
New mounts and equipment (gathering mounts, potential new resource tier)
Goals for PvE, guild leaders, and data enthusiasts:
More lore and quests
Special collectible rewards for completing quests
Increased capabilities for guild management
Improved Web API
For guilds in general, we want to expand on Hideouts with additional open-world buildings guilds could use to protect territories, collect resources or provide combat support in the open world. And for beginning players, we want to introduce a mentoring program called the Albion Academy.
We Need You!
As usual at the end of the year, we’re looking for your opinions about Albion Online. What are we doing well? What do we need to improve? And what features would you like to see? You can tell us in our end-of-year survey which we’ll be sending to active players who have opted-in to receive the newsletter in the coming weeks, or fill out our Roadmap Survey here.
Your feedback will help us decide which features to prioritize as we continue our journey to make Albion Online the best Sandbox MMORPG in the world.
Thank you for your continued support, and we'll see you in 2021!
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