Free To Craft Until The Cows Come Home – Albion Online Preview

<p class&equals;"western">Sometimes I&&num;8217&semi;ll pick out a game to cover just out of pure faith that it is either interesting&comma; popular&comma; or good &lpar;why review a game that looks bad just to confirm &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;yep&comma; this game you wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t have bought is bad after all&excl;”&quest;&rpar;&period; Other times&comma; there is a personal interest in me that makes me lunge out for a title&period; So&comma; as someone who&&num;8217&semi;s favourite part of MMORPGs is the crafting &lpar;often wanting to see if I can level up with just gear I&&num;8217&semi;ve crafted&rpar;&comma; <em>Albion Online<&sol;em> drew me into its dream of relying on crafting like a sweet honeyed dream&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">I recently managed to try out a beta build of <strong><em><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;albiononline&period;com&sol;en&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank">Albion Online<&sol;a><&sol;em> <&sol;strong>by Sandbox Interactive&comma; stumbling around doing PvE&period; For those scratching your heads confused&comma; it is an upcoming free-to-play MMORPG for PC and tablets &lpar;iOS and Android&rpar; that has gotten the idea of crafting and polished it into a reflection&period; You venture out&comma; with knowledge of all the crafts&comma; to level up your craft by crafting things while doing more quests that involve crafting&period; Suffice to say&comma; if making things isn&&num;8217&semi;t your cup of tea then you may want to run the other way right now&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">By crafting&comma; gathering&comma; or killing things &lpar;including animals to skin&rpar; you gain fate points that slowly level up various skills so you can access the next tier &lpar;e&period;g&period; such as being able to gather new materials&comma; create new gear&comma; and equip new items&rpar;&period; As complex and tedious as it sounds&comma; due to the rampant availability of materials&comma; usually you&&num;8217&semi;ll be hoarding countless items with each step or doing a quest only to randomly be told &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;oh&comma; you can do these new things now&excl;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;96033" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-96033" style&equals;"width&colon; 1280px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04103448&sol;AlbionOnlinePic1&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"wp-image-96033 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04103448&sol;AlbionOnlinePic1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"AlbionOnlinePic1" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"720" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-96033" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Albion Online&comma; Sandbox Interactive&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">Fortunately&comma; the crafting in its current state is fantastic&period; As odd as it is&comma; the heavy availability of materials is more pleasing than easy as it means you&&num;8217&semi;re always progressing along the main focus of the game&period; I also ended up oddly enjoying how equipment can be traded or made&comma; not bought from a vendor or earned in a quest&period; It felt more and more like my own character that I made with the equipment I hand-crafted with these two virtual hands&comma; rather than following in an all-too familiar path created by others before me&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">It is everywhere else that the game may lose people&comma; sadly&comma; as it is as basic &lpar;and sometimes drab&rpar; as <em>Call Of Duty<&sol;em>&&num;8216&semi;s environments&period; The quests&comma; at least so far 5&plus; hours in&comma; have boiled down to either gathering so much&comma; making so much&comma; killing an enemy so much&comma; or the ever-tedious &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;go to X with Y item” quests&period; I found the combat is incredibly simplified&comma; with 6 skills depending on the gear you have equipped &lpar;something that can be customised when you make the weapon&sol;armour&rpar; and no levelling&sol;class system beyond the skills you slowly level up&comma; giving you access to better armour and weapons to equip&period; This in turn leaves you about as effective as your equipment and your playing-ability allows for&comma; rather than having those moments when a level 20 stomps on your level 1&&num;8217&semi;s face&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;96034" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-96034" style&equals;"width&colon; 1280px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04103433&sol;AlbionOnlinePic2&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"wp-image-96034 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04103433&sol;AlbionOnlinePic2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"AlbionOnlinePic2" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"720" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-96034" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Albion Online&comma; Sandbox Interactive&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">The environments are also often small&period; You&&num;8217&semi;re able to stumble from one edge of the map to the other as though on a pub-crawl in a shockingly short amount of time before you get thrown into a loading screen for the next short place&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">However&comma; despite all that&comma; I genuinely had a lot of fun&period; I gleefully tried to gather as much silver as I could &lpar;only earned via quests&rpar; to make my own guild&colon; Potato People&period; This was before noticing you can get premium membership &lpar;and therefore a house&rpar; using silver rather than the player-bought gold&period; Currently&comma; at least until the beta ends&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m trying to gather enough silver for membership and a house so I can grow my own food on farm on top of all the other exciting crafting I enjoy doing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">I can imagine <em>Albion Online<&sol;em> being an awkward sell for those looking for a PC MMORPG due to how basic it is &lpar;at least if you&&num;8217&semi;re not the type to fall into a time sink gleefully making inane things in a game&rpar;&comma; but for those with a tablet it might actually be ideal&period; Plus&comma; it is free to try on release if you&&num;8217&semi;re like me in the sense of having a warm fuzzy feeling every time you make better gear to use&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western"><em>Albion Online<&sol;em> will be releasing for free onto Windows&comma; Mac&comma; and Linux&comma; as well as iOS and Android tablets&comma; in Q1 2016&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western" style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>A closed beta invitation for Albion Online was provided by Sandbox Interactive for the purpose of this preview<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;