Albion Online News

Saturday marks the beginning of Albion's tenth Guild Season, a major milestone that would not have been possible without the support of the Albion community worldwide. This season will be the first to include the new Avalonian Weapons and Roads of Avalon, and we're very excited to see how guilds make use of these new features. 

For the complete Guild Season schedule, check out this forum post.


[h3]Claim Your Goliath Horseeater[/h3]
Guilds that reach a high enough rank during the season can claim fantastic rewards including an avatar, avatar ring, and the fearsome new Goliath Horseeater mount with root, immobility, and poison spells. This mount will be awarded to members of guilds that reach Silver Rank or higher during the season. The winning guild will receive a statue among the past Guild Season winners in Conquerors' Hall, and the first through fifth ranked guilds will also receive a 90-day Fame Bonus.


[h3]Watch Live on AlbionTV[/h3]
As always, you can watch the season start live: the action kicks off on AlbionTV this Saturday, August 29 at 17:30 UTC, when hosts Shozenwon, Lewpac and Bogul bring you full coverage of Invasion Day.

At 18:00 UTC, guilds can claim territories and launch attacks. Those in the North and South American time zones can also tune in for the second round of territory resets on Sunday, August 30 at 00:30 UTC with hosts Shozenwon, Robinhoodrs and Bogul covering the next round of claimable territories starting at 01:00 UTC.

Fights are broadcast live with a 15-minute time delay.


[h3]Relive the Offseason Crystal Tournament[/h3]
Last weekend we hosted the first-ever Offseason Crystal Tournament, hopefully the first of many. If you missed it, you can read a rundown of the tournament and watch its thrilling conclusion here - or if you want to avoid spoilers, you can jump straight to our Youtube channel and watch the final match directly!

The Rise of Avalon update went live on August 12, bringing numerous major new features to the world of Albion. One such feature is Corrupted Dungeons, which have already been accessed over one million times since the update went live. Based on this tremendous amount of new data and community feedback, we've made some adjustments to how Infamy works:

• Players now lose half as much Infamy when killed, and gain slightly less when victorious
• A flat Infamy bonus has been added to PvP wins based on dungeon level
• Slayer dungeon unlock is now permanent and retroactive
• Matchmaking system adjusted and improved

[h3]New Season 9 Statue[/h3]
Congratulations to Guild Season 9 winners Elevate on their decisive victory! You can visit Conquerors' Hall in all major Royal Continent cities to see the new statue in their honor, which appears both at the entryway and inside and also honors second- and third-place winners Bloco de Rua and RANG.
[h3]Other Changes[/h3]

• 5 new Castles and 20 new Castle Outposts added to the Outlands
• Arena / Crystal League / City Fight Scoreboards now update more reliably
• Increased overall spawn numbers for Hellgates
• Various Combat Balance Changes and bugfixes

For the full list of changes, please see the official patchnotes.

Tune in to AlbionTV this weekend for the first-ever Offseason Crystal Tournament, where Albion's top 5v5 teams will face off for huge rewards. The tournament will pit the six teams who won a Level 9 match during the final round of Season 9 against each other, and will have the following structure:

Saturday 22 August:

• Round 1: 17:00 - 18:00 UTC
  
• Round 2: 18:15 - 19:15 UTC
  
• Round 3: 19:30 - 20:30 UTC
  

Sunday 23 August:

• Round 4: 17:00 - 18:00 UTC
  
• Round 5: 18:15 - 19:15 UTC
  
• Round 6: 19:30 - 20:30 UTC
  
• Round 7: 20:45 - 22:15 UTC
  

A few important details:

• The above times are approximate, and all teams participating should be ready for their rounds as soon as the tournament begins. We will try to abide by the timings above but all teams should be ready for matches to start or end at times other than those listed above.
• Rounds 1-6 will have a soft Item Power cap of 1500, with all IP above 1500 reduced by 80%.
• Round 7 will have a soft Item Power cap of 1700, with all IP above 1700 reduced by 80%.
• Examples of effective IP based on actual IP of 2000:
  • Rounds 1-6: 1600 (1500 + 0.2 x 500)
  • Round 7: 1760 (1700 + 0.2 x 300)
• The full rules, schedule, and rewards can be found in this forum post. NOTE: Any updates to the Tournament will be reflected in this post, so please refer to it for any questions.

You can watch the Offseason Crystal Tournament matches live on AlbionTV starting Saturday at 17:00 UTC. Join hosts Bogul, Shozen, Lewpac and Tazzik as they broadcast all the high-stakes action live!

Albion Online's Tenth Guild Season starts on Saturday, August 29. Guilds that reach a high enough rank during the season can claim fantastic rewards including an avatar, avatar ring, and the fearsome new Goliath Horseeater mount!



The Goliath Horseeater strikes fear into the hearts of other battle mounts with its powerful web, which can render them completely immobile. It also has AoE root and poison spells that slow and weaken enemy forces. This mount will be awarded to guilds who reach Silver Rank or higher during Season 10, with increasingly higher stats (and increasingly epic appearance) with each successive tier.

The winning guild will receive a statue among the past Guild Season winners in Conquerors' Hall, which since the Queen update can be accessed via all major cities. Qualifying guilds will also receive a Fame Bonus and furniture items, as listed in the tables below:




[h3]New This Season: Roads of Avalon + New Weapons[/h3]
The launch of the Rise of Avalon update on August 12 brought numerous new features to the world of Albion. The Roads of Avalon are an ever-shifting road network accessed via the open world that allows guilds to place Hideouts away from the politics of the Outlands. Avalon lacks territories that give Season Points, but guilds can still choose to compete in other ways from an Avalon-based Hideout.

Additionally, the new line of fifteen Avalonian Weapons introduced with Rise of Avalon will have far-reaching effects on small- and large-scale battles alike, and will update the combat meta for both open-world territory battles and the 5v5 combat of the Crystal League.



Gear up and prepare for a whole new season – and check out the full rundown of important Season 10 dates on our forum.

The dust has cleared on Albion's ninth Guild Season - congrats to new champions Elevate on their decisive victory!



Season 9 saw numerous power blocks reorganized, with Season 8 winners Sex With Ex and their ARMOR alliance beginning to fall apart even before Season 8 ended. The result was a power vacuum that Elevate, a guild created during the offseason, expertly stepped in to fill. Mamono, leader of Elevate, describes their strategy as follows:

The first month of the season was spent building the strongest zerg in the game while fighting the mega alliances of the world against all odds. We did this while also maintaining the #1 spot in the rankings, which was taken in the first week of the season through dominance in both the open world and the Crystal League.

Elevate 3x City Fight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI57g1gN570
The resulting boost to their reputation helped them recruit even more talent and placed them firmly into the upper echelons of Albion politics, where they decided to lead a coalition of guilds against the POE Empire. Black Order, Zorn, Violets, and their alliances all joined the coalition, as did many other guilds and alliances, to take down POE led by Crimson Imperium Reborn. This ongoing battle continued until the final weeks of the season, as massive forces from both sides fought daily over the southern Outlands. Mamono describes their approach to unseating POE:

"Just before the first reset day, Elevate, RUCOM, and several of our allies formed a coalition against POE. The war raged on with several battles won and lost by each side daily. The coalition quickly pushed POE out of its former 15 UTC holdings, and began the assault of Rivercopse Fount, the main zone of Hammer and Sickle. This attack was attempted and failed numerous times as POE defended for over a month, but once the Hideout reached its last shield, Elevate and Black Order were able to defeat CIR, SUN, Hammer and Sickle, and ScoiaTael in back-to-back battles."

Once POE and their allies fell back further south, much of the momentum of the coalition's push was halted, and Elevate had to transition from being the underdog to the difficult task of ruling an empire. As far as the season victory was concerned, though, Elevate's lead at the season's midpoint made catching them out of reach, even for #2 guild RANG. Early in the season, Rang, Native, Final Order and Last Warn looked quite strong, and many even picked Native to win the season based on their strong Crystal League play. But Elevate's consolidation of teams and their domination of ZvZs, city fights, and early-season Crystal League battles left other guilds fighting for second-best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA0xaXBWg-c
The battle for second place was much closer: in the final weeks of the season, current second-place team RANG closed up shop. This opened the door for Bloco de Rua, who took to hiring mercenaries to push their season points in the final stretch by scoring massive points in the Crystal League and dominating castle conquest during the double-points phase of the season. Sure enough, on the final day of the season, Bloco de Rua passed RANG and claimed second place.

Steinhub, leader of Bloco de Rua, describes facing off against Elevate's coalition from the opposing side:

"We fought many battles to assist our EU allies who were facing a mega alliance led by Elevate, but the most important moment was when we helped ARCH against Last Warn. After that, ARCH began to help us in our quest for the top. Seven CTSs per day was a hard time and we were glad to take the extra help from our Crystal GvG allies."


[h3]Looking to Season 10[/h3]
Other notable storylines of the last season include Final Order's war in the north and their subsequent closure as they look to reestablish Seasons 1-2 champions Money Guild, which will be worth keeping an eye on. And ARCH was drawn into a massive war to defend their homes from the forces of Last Warn and the newly reemerged EOS. Territories fell and Hideouts were smashed but ARCH remained strong, and with the launch of the Rise of Avalon update and the upcoming season many believe their best days are still ahead of them.

Season 10 kicks off on Saturday, August 29 - for the complete season schedule, see this forum post.

Thanks to Shozen, Mytherceria, Mamono, Steinhub, and others for their contributions to this article.