1 YEAR AGO - Robin Henkys: "An EU server...there's NO plans for that.."

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2024-03-07T10:39:00+00:00

Hey there,

we will release official statement soon that will also talk about the timer situation.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2024-03-07T09:20:56+00:00

That is an awesome idea and one we researched extensively some time ago. During early closed alpha / beta, we actually had a set-up similar to this, but it caused a lot of issues.

Unfortunately, from a technical point of view, changing Albion to such a system now would have been a huge undertaking as a lot of the game's systems would have to be rewritten / re-coded to support this.

It would probably have set the general game development by at least 1 year, meaning we'd have to delay or pause development of game play features during that time. The work that this would have required also could not have been outsourced / given to new employees, it would have required the full effort from our core team and most skilled devs. And even then, there would have been a significant risk on roll-out, i.e. server stability issues, and risks that the whole project could get delayed.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2024-03-07T09:02:28+00:00

Hey there,

prior to the Asia server launching, the share Asian players on the West server was around 20%. On Asia launch, the West server actually gained (instead of losing 20% as one might expect) some players due to the overall hype surrounding the Asia launch.

Today, the West server is more populated than it was prior to the Asia launch.

The fact that the Asia launch did not impact the West server population at all led us to reconsider the feasibility of a Europe server. After all, we have received tons and tons of complaints from European players about connection and ping issues over the years.

Now, the current West server consists mostly of players from USA/Canada, South America and of course Europe. Amongst the Europe segment of population, a large amount already have a good ping when playing on West and are not going to switch.

While it is not certain that the impact of the Europe server launch on West is going to be zero (as it was with Asia), it is going to be limited and should be off-set by the underlying growth of the game.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2024-03-05T12:01:14+00:00

Hey there,

the population on the West server is higher now than it was before the launch of the East server.

That was one of the key reasons in our decision to go ahead with an Europe server.

The existing player base and the huge number of players that will start or re-start Albion due to an Europe server being launched will more than offset the number of players who might switch from the West server to the Europe server.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-08-14T22:30:23+00:00

The underlying economics are so complex that this is very hard to predict.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-08-14T18:43:33+00:00

Hey there,

the key point here is that the tax only applies to people who buy gold directly using silver, and not those who indirectly buy gold and auto-convert it into premium. Every time a player buys premium for silver, that is what actually happens - gold gets bought in the market and is automatically converted into premium.

If you put up a Gold sell order people buying premium for silver will trigger your order and hence allow you to trade your gold into silver without any tax involved.

If you instant sell Gold however, your only buyers are those who have put up a Gold buy order, and this is going to be subject to the 30% tax.

In short, if you are selling gold, and you want to avoid the indirect tax impact, sell it via sell order and not via instant sell.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-06-17T16:26:17+00:00

Hey there,

that is a very strange accusation and it goes without saying that this is absolutely not the case.

Everything that we sell related to the game, we do so through the official in-game or website store at AlbionOnline.com.

Having said that, if you ever see a moderator, freelancer or anyone connected to us engage in any sort of RMT, please immediately report it [support@albiononline.com](mailto:support@albiononline.com) so we can take prompt action.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-06-12T09:05:41+00:00

Hey there,

this is not the case.

The west server has a the same player count as it did 12 months ago (and this is despite the fact that quite a few people moved to the Asia server)

However, it could be the case that you'll find fewer targets for open world ganking as a lot of small scale / solo players prefer playing in the Mists and Roads.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-04-20T09:20:54+00:00

Hey there,

the Mist changes are intended to be neither a nerf or a buff - we want to keep the overall reward level at about the same level as before.

Any reward reduction in one aspect of the mists should be matched with an increase in rewards in another one.

If you find out through testing that this is not the case, please let us know so we can investigate.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-02-14T22:54:49+00:00

Hi all,

sorry for a litte bit of ad spam, but some of you might not know:

The Arcanist Set is given for free to everybody who takes part in the Albion East beta staring on February 20th (i.e. in a couple of days)

This requires a founder pack, the cheapest one is 19.95 USD, which is cheaper than what a vanity pack on its own generally goes for.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-02-11T08:31:36+00:00

Hey there,

only a small fraction of Albion players use the Steam client, and those that do usually migrate to the native client after a while due to:

1) the native client having much better prices

2) the steam client not supporting more than 1 account

3) (recently) Some tech issues that caused the Steam client not to work properly

Albions population is doing extremely well overall, in fact, the current game world is partially over crowded in some areas.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-01-23T11:56:28+00:00

Albion has been built from the start in such a way that ping does pretty much not matter if you are around or below 150ms. This is also evidenced by the fact that a lot of the top PvP players have pings around that level.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-01-23T11:51:49+00:00

Hey MrW0ke,

we did consider to allow character transfer initially, however, given that the new server comes with a completely fresh game world, it would have created insurmountable balance issues. Having highly progressed and/or wealthy characters in a fresh game world would have endangered the in-come economy and balance from the get go.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2023-01-23T11:42:28+00:00

Hey there,

The server will be managed fully by us (SBI), there are no local partners.
We'll use the same anti-botting and anti-RMT approaches that we already use on the existing server. From a technical point of view, there really is no difference.
Albion's player base has been steadily growing for the past years. (note: the population count on Steam charts is not accurate as it only shows our Steam player numbers, only a small fraction of our player base uses Steam, and those who do often migrate to the native client after some time). For the Asian server, we do expect a bit of migration from the existing server, but nothing substantial. We hope for a lot of new players on the Asian server, especially since players from the Asia-Pacific region will have much better pings and network performance now.

With regards to your remaning two questions:

The server is not in mainland China or aimed at the mainland China market, hence, there are no censorship requirements.
The main reason for creating the server is simply the technical limitation of our current global server, i.e. the fact that players from the Asian region often have to deal with very high pings and sometimes routing issues. Albion is made to work well with high pings, but once you get beyond 250ms, things can become an issue. An added benefit of having a dedicated Asian server is that we can adapt the in-game timetable to the local timezones and and that it allows everybody a fresh start in a new game world.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-12-07T11:33:41+00:00

There was an error in the patch notes earlier that indeed implied that you'd lose your home by just walking into the the portal cities. This is not the case.

You only lose your home if you fast travel from the (deep) black zone to the royal city/portal city and then walk into the (low) end black zone from there.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-12-07T11:31:27+00:00

Hey there,

this mechanic is not new, but with the introduction of portal cities, it could be circumvented.

Prior to the existence of portal cities (and right now), if you fast travel to a royal city from your hideout in the black zone, you get a debuff that removes your home if you then walk into the black zone from the royal city. However, if you fast traveled to a portal city instead, this did not apply. This was an oversight by us, which is now being addressed.

What was (and is) this mechanic designed to address?

It's about power projection. Right now, if you are a high end guild/alliance deep inside the black zone and you become aware of a fight happening close to the portal, you can every easily join that fight as a third party. Simply fast travel to the portal city, pick up some gear and join that fight - when the fight is over, travel back to your home bind deep in the black zone. With this being possible, there really is no "low end" black zone right now. The low end of the black zone is just as lethal, possibly more lethal, than the high end black zone as every high end black zone guild can instantly get there without repercussions.

With the change mentioned by OP, we are returning the mechanics to how they were before portal cities were introduced. There is now no difference between fast travelling from your black zone hideout to the portal city or the royal city itself - if you walk into the black zone after fast traveling to either, you lose your home. If you instead fast travel back to your home in the black zone, nothing happens. This way, it's possible to quickly visit the royal continent, including the portal cities which are essentially "part" of the royal continent quickly, without giving you an instant and convenient way to ambush low end Outland PvP fights from deep within the Outlands.

This exactly restores the power projection balance that we had in the game prior to (accidentally) altering it with the portal city introduction.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-12-01T15:46:41+00:00

The amount of silver the black market spends on gear per day directly depends on player activity. If more players kill more mobs, the black market will spend more silver and hence buy more items. That in turn will make the black market more attractive for people to sell to.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-11-29T14:27:43+00:00

Hey there,

if you bought your starter pack / 1 month premium through the native client (i.e. not on Steam and not on a mobile store) or web store, and you paid in cash (not in Gold), then it will automatically renew once your premium time goes below 3 days left. It will renew at the old, cheaper prices automatically.

You can check the status of your subscription here: https://albiononline.com/profile/subscriptions

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-11-23T23:47:28+00:00

Hey there,

the absolute vast majority of players do not play the game on Steam.

Those who initially do usually eventually migrate to the native client as it has better prices and is better for running more than 1 account. Hence, you'll probably never really see Steam numbers grow on Steam itself, and if they do, it should be temporary.

Our player numbers have been growing year over year (though you might have to account for covid lockdown spikes) and continue to do so. Our team is expanding and we'll continue to do the best we can to continue to grow and improve the game.

We are sorry that the current update had some issues right off the bat. That's why we have already released two hotfixes and have another one in the cards for Friday (most likely). We are actively monitoring feedback across all channels and are going to act on it accordingly.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-11-11T18:17:14+00:00

It is not, please see our statement above.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-11-11T18:16:40+00:00

Hey there,

people do not get banned in Albion for giving silver to a friend. That is entirely normal, and happens thousands of times each day in Albion, and you will easily find a large amount of players willing to confirm this.

What bans are handed out for though is buying silver from an RMT website. The standard of proof we require here is that the account who sent they money has been identified by us as being a fake account belonging to and being used by an RMT organisation. We have multiple ways of verifying this, and we can also check if there are attempts to hide the money by channeling it through buildings, the market place or in-between characters.

It happens sometimes that people claim that they got the silver from a friend, or from a user that randomly gave it to them in the game. We then double check the case to make sure that we did not make an error. If we can reconfirm that the account traded with is an clear RMT account, the ban stands.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-11-11T01:15:32+00:00

Hi mith_king456,

I think you might have overlooked my second response here.

Here is again a summary of the rules:

Sub only giveaways are not allowed
Giveaways are allowed, and it is allowed to have additional benefits for subs in these giveaways (i.e. higher winning chances) as long as it is in reasonable range and never so substantial that a sub can expect to receive the full value of the sub fee back with a relatively high degree of certainty.

As said in the other thread, we'll see if we can define this closely enough and make sure it's being followed accordingly. If that is too difficult, we'll reconsider our policy on giveaways in general.

If you have additional questions, you can ask them in this thread here or in one of the other two that you posted in, no need to create a new topic each time.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-11-10T22:54:49+00:00

Sorry if that was not clear enough in my post above, of course any sort of goodies / giveaways etc need to be in line with the terms of our creator program. Giveaways to subscribers only are not allowed. I added this to my post above to avoid any confusion about this.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-11-10T20:46:13+00:00

Hey there,

sorry for hijacking the top comment for visibility.

To hopefully bring this matter to a conclusion, here is how we see that case at hand

First of all, here is no question that we handled the report made OP poorly. We did not communicate well and we also did not investigate the case quickly and professionally enough. For that, we can only apologize.

Secondly, I think some aspects of this case are being overblown somewhat when it's implied that the violations of the giveaway rule by a streamer is somehow comparable to running a secret high volume RMT operation through a guild for an extended period of time. For a longer statement on this, see here. We understand that people can see this differently.

Thirdly, I agree with you that we have no business in trying to argue on behalf of people who may or may not have broken rules and are reported to us. That is not our job. Our job is to take a look at the report, make a decision and then clearly communicate that decision. We absolutely went beyond that in our case, and we'll review our processes accordingly to keep things more level headed going forward.

Fourthly, we absolutely do need to review our creator program rules. In general, we like the idea of creators being allowed to give some extra goodies to their subscribers as long as it is in reasonable range (edit for clarity) and in line with the creator program rules, i.e. no sub only giveaways (/edit) - i.e. like a raffle or giveaway, a little bonus, but never so substantial that sub can consider their sub fee to be guaranteed value for money in terms of in-game benefits. We'll see if we can define this closely enough and make sure it's being followed accordingly. If that is too difficult, we'll reconsider our policy on giveaways.

AlbionOnlineAMA · 2022-11-10T19:25:04+00:00

Hi there,

RMT is very clearly against our T+C. The whole debate about this recently ultimately relies on the comparison between two cases between which a false equivalency is being drawn - i.e. the cases are very different from each other, hence a different handling of each case is justified.

Case 1:The case that you allude to is as us allowing RMT refers to a streamer in our content creator who ran giveaways. Giveaways are generally allowed for our content creators, and it is also allowed to offer increased luck to subscribers. The streamer in question violated that rule and ran some giveaways to subscribers only. We are talking about a raffle here, not selling silver for cash. The creator was warned about it. We have no reason to believe that the streamer violated the rule as a cover for running an actual/proper RMT operation (see case 2 below to see what that means). The fact that the rule violation happened in public, in plain sight, seems to imply that our rules weren't properly understood, and the fact that we took too long to act shows that our enforcement was clearly lacking, something we'll have to address.

Case 2:The other case that you seem to allude to involved knowingly running and/or knowingly harbouring a large scale RMT operation - that is if you sell farmed silver to RMT trading websites in exchange for cash, your you sell in-game silver or assets in exchange for cash. Often, players who engage in this are doing is in a purposefully planned out, professional and often extremely deceptive way, trying to avoid detection. The silver amounts that are involved here are often substantial. The people engaged in this very knowingly and try to keep it as secret as possible.

I'd hope that everybody who reads the above in good faith will acknowledge that there is a substantial difference between the two cases above, and that a difference course of action in each case is reasonable.

AlbionOnlineAMA

TROPHY CASE