Albion Online News

Following our recent introductions to Shapeshifter weapons and Tracking, our newest Dev Talk with Game Director Robin Henkys explores another exciting feature on its way to Albion: Awakened and Legendary Items.

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[h3]Goals[/h3]

• Add one-of-a-kind items with their own story to the game
• These won’t be pre-designed, but created by players
• These will be very rare, with each feeling like a significant piece of the world of Albion

[h3]How does it work?[/h3]
Creating Legendary Items will be a two-stage process:

• First, an item will need to be awakened
• Then, eventually, it can be made legendary

Awakened Items

• Awakened Weapons will arrive with Albion’s next content update
• A weapon must have Pristine Enchantment before it can be awakened
• Awakened weapons can earn attunement points from PvE combat
  • These can be used to roll for additional or improved traits on the weapon
  • Such modifications add strain to the weapon, increasing the cost of further changes
• Players can thus create weapons with unique traits, with the increasing cost of modifications encouraging a variety of trait combinations

Legendary Rating

• As weapons gain more powerful traits, their legendary rating increases
• This also increases the likelihood of it being lost or destroyed on death
• Lost items can return to the game as loot, with their creator’s name attached
• They can then be further attuned, with further players adding their name to its history

A later content update will introduce the ability to upgrade items to legendary status. These will require extremely rare resources, but will be uniquely powerful and renowned across Albion.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more on our upcoming update and further plans!

A new referral season is here, and from now until the end of August you can get the Alpaca mount skin with a single referral!

This splendid skin gives your Giant Stag base mount a uniquely noble grace and proud posture as it carries your character across Albion’s biomes. Once you’ve unlocked the skin, it can be used by any of your characters on that particular server (either Albion East or West).

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[h3]How to Earn Seasonal Referral Rewards[/h3]

• Send your referral link, which you can find here, to a friend. (You must be logged into your account on the website to view this page.)
• Your friend registers an account and starts playing Albion Online (preferably along with you!).
• The first time your friend purchases at least 30 days of Premium, they will trigger a reward for you.
• On top of that, for your very first referral ever, you'll receive a T8 Recruiter's Pile of Tomes, worth a massive 200,000 Fame.

This Referral Season lasts until 23:59 UTC on August 31, so invite your friends and enjoy these rewards!

Summer is in full swing, and the Divine Challenge is back! For the entire month of August, earn points for open-world activities, unlock chests to get valuable loot, and claim your very own Divine Owl.
[h3]Simply Divine[/h3] DIVINE OWL: This month's Challenge brings back this ghostly white flying mount with a brisk base move speed. This mount has a special ability, Foresight, which creates a shield that gives a temporary speed boost when broken. (Note: like all mounts, the Divine Owl can only move in navigable ground areas and cannot fly over obstacles.)
 

AVATAR RING: Adventurers who rack up enough total Challenge Points will also earn the Divine Challenge Avatar Ring, which will frame your chosen avatar in a heavenly golden aura. This non-tradable item permanently unlocks this avatar border for one character, or can be traded to the Vanity Merchant for one Vanity Token.
 



SEASONAL SPECIALS: All month long, reach weekly goals to unlock Divine Challenge chests. In addition to valuable rewards like Adventurer's Tomes and Silver, you'll also have a chance to unlock mystical furniture items like the Mage Statue, Magic Rune Circle, and Glass Sphere.
 
As always, you can earn Challenge Points by gathering, fishing, farming, and killing monsters. Points count simultaneously toward a daily bonus, a weekly unlockable chest, and the monthly mount / avatar ring reward. So log in, head out into the open world, gather points, and claim these rewards while you can!

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[h3]Zones in Albion[/h3]

The world of Albion is made up of four different zone types – blue, yellow, red, and black – each with different PvP rules and consequent effects on your reputation. Losing fights in different zones has varying consequences, which we will explore below.



[h3]Flagging for Combat[/h3]

Flagging signals to other players that you are looking for a fight. In yellow and red zones, flagging allows a player to attack unflagged players. To be clear, a flagged player can always be attacked by anyone in yellow and red zones. This means both flagged and unflagged players can attack a flagged player. Flag at your own risk!

Yellow and red zones have different consequences for losing a fight, and possible rewards for winning.

In a yellow zone, a player who drops to zero HP can only be knocked down, not killed. If this happens to you, your equipped items lose 5% durability. A little bit of Silver will also drop next to your body. However, no gold or silver is ever lost from your inventory - the Silver that drops on knockdown / death is generated by the system based on the value of your equipment that lost durability.



Red zones are much less forgiving. When your HP is reduced to zero by a player in a red zone, you die. All your items drop on death, and you respawn with no equipment at either your pre-set Home, or your last visited city. Some of the items you were carrying will trash, while others will lose durability but be lootable by whoever can pick them up.

The same death rules apply in black zones (also known as the Outlands). However, players do not need to be flagged in black zones - PvP is always turned on! You will be able to attack or be attacked by anyone not in your guild, alliance or party.

[h3]Consequences of Attacking Unflagged Players[/h3]

So, what’s stopping bandits from running wild in the Royal Zones? Reputation. In short, flagged players who attack unflagged players lose reputation. Lose too much reputation, and you get kicked out of lower zone types, or out of the Royal Continent entirely until your reputation recovers!



[h3]How to Flag for PvP[/h3]

At the top left of the screen, to the right of your name, is a small blue shield. To flag, simply click on this shield.



Once you click this button, you must remain still for 15 seconds. During this time, you charge up a bar. When it’s full, you’re flagged! This lets other players around you know you’re flagging. Likewise, if a player near you is doing this, beware: they are preparing to attack!

[h3]Faction Warfare[/h3]

Faction Warfare involves a special kind of flagging: faction flagging. While faction flagged, you gain faction points for gathering, killing creatures, or claiming outposts. These increased bonuses are offset by the fact that people flagged under a different city’s faction can attack you.

To faction-flag, you must find the Faction Enlistment Agent in any of the Royal Cities (Martlock, Lymhurst, Fort Sterling, Bridgewatch, Thetford, or Caerleon).



[h3]Zerg Markers[/h3]

Now that you know how to flag for combat, let’s talk about zergs. Zergs are larger groups of players, ranging from 10 all the way to the hundreds! Zergs often roam the Outlands and Royal Continent hunting for players to fight.



Luckily, Albion Online has a useful system to mark Zergs on the minimap so you can see them coming. Red zerg markers start appearing on the map when 11 or more players travel closely together. In the Roads of Avalon, these zerg markers start appearing at 8 players. The more players there are traveling together, the larger the circle on the map!

[h3]Unrestricted PvP Subzones[/h3]

Some parts of the world, such as Treasure Sites, are unrestricted PvP subzones. In these areas of the world, players who enter are automatically flagged for PvP and can freely fight anyone else in the subzone, unless they are currently flagged for the same Faction (Caerleon excluded). These areas are clearly marked by a glowing yellow circle on the ground. Cross the border at your own risk. Dropping to zero HP inside these areas due to PvP follows the zone rules: knockdown in yellow zones, death in red zones. Fighting inside PvP subzones does not affect reputation, as all players inside the subzone are flagged.

We recently kicked off a series of Dev Talks which take a look at a number of new features coming soon to Albion Online, starting with the all-new Shapeshifter weapons. In the next of these videos, Game Director Robin Henkys takes a look at Tracking, a new open-world activity.

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[h3]Goals[/h3]

As the open world is the heart of Albion Online, Tracking looks add a new element to gameplay here:

• Players are challenged to search the open world in pursuit of a target
• The focus is less on direct PvP combat, but rather to increase the amount of players roaming the open world
• This encourages chance encounters for different-sized groups

[h3]How does it work?[/h3]

Following Tracks

• Players must first craft a Tracking Kit, which lets them interact with tracks in the open world
• Reading a track reveals a location to search for further tracks
  • This may be in the same region or a neighboring region
  • Players will generally have to search a wider area for tracks, not a specific point
• There, players may find further tracks, the final target, or other random encounters
• Each tracking step has a time limit

Finding the Target

• Each step increases the chances of catching the target, which will usually then involve a fight
• Bringing too many players can scare off the target, meaning the chase must continue
• As only the hunters know the location of their target, larger groups cannot simply wait to contest them

[h3]What can be found?[/h3]

• Initially, rare creatures matching the Shapeshifter weapon forms can be tracked down and fought
• These can drop new Artifact Items
  • These can be crafted into Shapeshifter Artifact Weapons
• They can also drop new Alchemical Ingredients
  • These can be crafted into a set of rare potions
  • Part of a wider rework of potion enchanting
• A wider range of trackable creatures will be introduced in later updates

We hope you’re excited about all the new possibilities which Tracking will open up. In our next Dev Talk, we’ll talk about a new concept which may use ingredients from Tracking: Legendary Items. Stay tuned for that, and thanks for watching!