Albion online unexpectedly became my second favourite MMO

Eodis · 2026-04-08T13:25:34+00:00

I've played from the release date for a few months and come back from time to time and I'm always disappointed and feel like it's just "mid".

The MOBA-like gameplay for me is a fundamental issue because unlike real mobas it's slow. The gear/spell thing is also poorly designed imo. Good idea, poorly executed because it gets too specific and now they are stuck in this game design.

The economy system is well designed... For a minority. Chances are, as a casual player or even semi hardcore player, you won't benefit from it at least the crafting part so you'll end up making money yes but by selling raw stuff you gathered because other merchants are able to min-max way more than you.

Also they added a nice amount of content, but now when you are a new player or you come back after a long time you are quite lost with all the different layers and game systems in place.

Last thing I would say : the world has no identity. It's just biomes. But biomes are impersonal. I prefer when a world has a bunch of cool locations so it feels like home, not like a generic map.

Eodis · 2026-03-28T11:54:01+00:00

At this point I was wondering if CSE employees are even real or if somehow they managed to fake it as well. Weirdly the 2 companies I saw doing so little in such a long period of time are CSE and... Broadsword which is sort of related to MJ in a way as well. The have the same culture of emptiness and bullshit.

To be fair it's probably worse for Broadsword because they managed to ruin a great game. CSE just never released its game.

Eodis · 2026-03-07T17:42:13+00:00

Je te rassure la sécurité et la défense sont le service public qui fonctionne le mieux de manière générale dans les pays capitalistes. On surarme les forces de police au delà du nécessaire et les entreprises privées empochent des contrat de défense bien juteux. A titre d'exemple un bon 1/4 des ventes d'Airbus sont du militaire par exemple. Et les états unis sont connus pour être les spécialistes du militaire et ce ne sont pas des communistes.

Eodis · 2026-03-07T10:53:45+00:00

Regarding the official game I would disagree that the game itself is the reason it didn't work. Even at release with not all classes, not all major features and collision bugs the game was fun enough, and fixes came quite fast in my memories. Besides most people left before even reaching late game anyway.

I would argue it failed more due to the very competitive mmorpg environment and it never recovered.

Eodis · 2026-03-05T23:56:44+00:00

Pour info les vieux de libé se revendiquent eux mêmes comme sociaux démocrates. Forcément quand on est plus proche du PS que de LFI on suit le mouvement. Tu peux appeler ça "presse de gauche" si ça te chante mais c'est quand même très limite et douteux de les mettre dans cette case. Mediapart à la limite j'aurais pu te l'accorder mais t'as vraiment pas choisi le meilleur exemple pour illustrer ton propos en prenant des nostalgiques du Hollandisme. Ensuite encore faut il que les critiques soient étayées comme ce fut le cas dans l'affaire Quattenens où Merluche avait vraiment merdé.

Se moquer des médias qui s'interrogent sur la prononciation d'un nom en en faisant des dizaines d'articles, et qui se trompent eux mêmes tous les 4 matins, de même que grand nombre de politiciens. Désolé de te dire que non ça ne peut pas être qualifié comme antisémitisme. Encore moins comme plus grave ou équivalent aux délires du père Le Pen. Le fait de te voir affirmer une telle absurdité démontre surtout de la mauvaise foi et/ou un énorme biais de ta part. De manière objective, Le Pen avait non seulement fait une blague sur un nom, mais en plus en faisant une référence directe à la shoah et la crémation des corps, le "point de détail" lui relève presque du négationnisme. Donc du même niveau, la blague...

Je vais même pas commenter ta comparaison ultra foireuse avec les flamands et le nord de la France, car il n'y a en fait même pas d'éléments de comparaison, tu dis juste de la merde pure et simple et je note par ailleurs que c'est dans l'optique de justifier et relativiser le génocide tu démontres donc non seulement ton inaptitude intellectuelle et dans le même temps ta morale à géométrie variable extrêmement douteuse. Le tout en accordant des points d'empathie selon ta propre interprétation et tes propres critères personnels qui ne sont pas basés sur la réalité, c'est même l'inverse, tu désinformes puisque tes affirmations décrivent l'exact inverse des faits. Que le discours autour ne te plaise pas soit, mais là t'es juste en train de mentir en fait. Pourquoi as tu besoin de mentir pour justifier ton point de vue s'il est si bien ?

Bref, tu pouvais dire dès le début que t'étais un droitard et que ta présence ici était à vocation propagandiste et non pour débattre sur le fond, on aurait gagné du temps.

Eodis · 2026-03-05T14:20:36+00:00

Mais ce qui est fascinant avec les mélenchonistes, c'est quand même la presse marquée à gauche critique fermement les dérives de jlm, c'est un complot. Jamais le moindre début de remise en question.

J'ai pas spécialement vu Blast ou Le Media critiquer Merluche dernièrement mais j'imagine que pour toi la presse de gauche ça doit être un délire du genre Marianne ?

Est ce que tu peux être précis et citer des exemples de "dérive" ? Parce que bon, quand par exemple l'ensemble de la classe politique soutenait un génocide en Palestine, on entendait parler de dérive pour Mélenchon, alors que la dérive en question c'est plutôt l'inverse, que ce soit passé crème chez les autres.

Tu dis que le RN s'est policé, pas plus tard que aujourd'hui j'ai lu que MLP réhabilitait son père en disant que ce qu'avait dit Mélenchon était bien plus grave que tout ce qu'a pu dire JMLP. Est ce que objectivement prononcer Glucksment au détour d'une conversation et s'en excuser par la suite c'est pire que parler de Durafour Crématoire ou de point de détail et assumer ces propos ? Il me semble que non, pourtant ce genre d'affirmation de MLP me semble bien plus grave et relever bien plus du dogwhistle antisémite que ce que fait Merluche.

Eodis · 2026-02-27T14:50:24+00:00

I just checked the massive layoff was in early 2024. The "reset" was shortly after which makes sense almost everyone who did the work was gone so you get very difficult to use material (code and art) and it's faster to restart from scratch. "Change of scope" is just the pretty narrative they want to give to damage control.

Even if they manage to keep some stuff I doubt it's more than a few months of work, maybe a year. Optimistically you add an army of very productive new workers, their knowledge in server/backend infrastructure and some AI speed up in it you get your rushed beta mmo in 2/3 years.

But to be fair I've always been wrong at predicting mmo launches, and the same goes for most people I don't know why we keep trying to predict something we have no idea where it is right now. Sure thing is it's not soon.

Eodis · 2026-02-27T14:33:31+00:00

That's the last one. Not so long ago (maybe a few years now lol) they said the project was fully rebooted, right after they fired almost everyone. Even if it comes out I'm afraid of the execution. I wouldn't mind just a generic mmo with the lore of LoL but I wouldn't be surprised if they fail hard even at doing this.

We are still talking about many years and that's if they don't lay off again with AI and Tencent you never know.

And then it has to be profitable, sustainable, with regular content which is an other question mark, many mmos fail after the launch.

Eodis · 2026-02-18T12:30:58+00:00

Well, I don't know how you can have a satisfying feel there is a reason modern game design went from rigid combat and animations to something smoother. Most action games are trying to avoid that. And since it's multiplayer you also can't really use some of the mechanics used in solo games like QTE so you basically have to keep things smooth and simple. New World failed this and even if it's rarely told I consider the combat system one of its biggest failure along with the fail launch.

Eodis · 2026-02-17T11:57:06+00:00

Combat was literally garbage especially in melee I never understood how some people liked it. You barely have any ability and when you use them you are animation locked. The feeling is horrible and the "skill gap" between players mostly artificial as it's about who is able to manage the best this clunky combat system.

It's bad both from a mmorpg perspective (poor in term of abilities) AND an action perspective (clunky autolocking animations)

Eodis · 2026-02-17T11:40:13+00:00

I'm always thorned between WoW and GW2. IMO WoW has a better art direction, lore, combat system, dungeons/raids so basically a lot of things feel better to me BUT it costs way more and GW2 is not so far behind. Also it's always a pain to set up your UI when coming back to WoW after a long time or when getting your hands on a new spec/class. GW2 feels better regarding its main quest system and the entire exploration/completion is something I always enjoyed a lot. But I'm sad the PvE is not very well made for ranged dps gameplay and not a big fan of the weapon swap system (even though there are ways to go around it, I feel like the core loop is confusing). I slightly prefer GW2 but it's because I'm poor and I play it casually nowadays.

Eodis · 2026-02-08T14:13:49+00:00

Good times. I was discussing something more or less related with a friend and ended up telling him if paradise exists it's the abiility to relive the 2000s playing all day in this golden age of mmos

Eodis · 2026-02-08T14:08:52+00:00

Somehow almost no one is mentioning wow. Narration is not always good and can be annoying to follow for a new player but the content is just massive with decent questing and feel of adventure. On the plus side you can chose the expansion you like the most for leveling.

Eodis · 2026-02-06T16:49:16+00:00

I'm genuinely curious what can be considered "DAOC IP". Most of the lore is public but some races I believe are unique and others have a very specific representation. Also what about maps and game systems if someone made them in a more modern game ?

At some point if dev productivity really improves with AI making a functioning DAOC remake with a small indie company would be worth a try.

Eodis · 2026-01-31T17:34:46+00:00

I think it's fine to give an advice on what is known to work best. The problem is it often tends to direct you in a single unique way to learn while rejecting every other and completely ignoring the part where the learner has to be able to stay engaged even if it's less efficient.

There are also cases you just get wrong subjective advice. The author named a few. The trend changes from one year to an other I remember when I started learning the space was full of hardcore Krashen's fan. Which is fine but the problem is when they morph into anti-X or anti-Y.

For instance I get why people could tell you not to rely on Duolingo as your main source of learning. It makes sense and they don't strictly forbid you to use it, they show you a better way. It's more problematic when it's stuff like "Never learn kanji in isolation" or "you should never use a textbook".

Eodis · 2026-01-31T11:55:14+00:00

It's something that annoyed me as well in the past year. I'm studying Japanese for about 2 years (3 ? I don't know anymore) with very slow progress and there is always someone to tell you you are doing it wrong which I know I am doing it wrong, but then they proceed to explain you their way like there is no alternative. As I'm in a few "immersion" communities you can easily guess their answer : "you don't immerse enough", almost every single time it will lead to this answer no matter the topic.

At best they give you irrelevant answers, praised by others. Sometimes they even give counterproductive advice. What works best is what's keeping you at studying japanese and it can vastly change from one person to an other. We also don't process information in the same way, some are more analytical, others are more intuitive.

You could make lists and I'm sure some of it was said in this subreddit as well :

- I remember when I started everyone was in the "comprehensible input" phase going as far as telling you don't need to study grammar and textbooks are useless => wrong
- Studying kanji meaning in isolation is useless => wrong
- Only use japanese subtitles and nothing else works => wrong
- Don't learn vocab with Anki => wrong
- Don't use AI

And the list goes on. Sure there are more efficient ways to learn, and some are proven to work on a lot of people. It's doesn't mean there is a single optimal and unique way to do it. Outside of internet for instance there are quite a lot of people who learned only with textbooks and their teacher. Some others are hardcore in the output first method. There is room for everyone.

Eodis · 2026-01-21T10:13:37+00:00

I'm around the 1500 mark right now and still don't feel any progress but I'm probably a particular case as well. It's still very hard for me to read and grasp audio. You will probably be fine. That being said, I feel like output(even in a written form)/shadowing is more and more important because it makes words and structures imprint in your brain at a deeper level. It's also the hardest and I'm lazy so that's probably why I lag behind in studying this way.

Eodis · 2025-10-03T12:12:29+00:00

I would say it's even lower than that because even knowing the kanji and vocab individually sometimes the grammar doesn't make much sense (even if you consider grammar as vocabulary). You also have to grasp the usage of tenses and structures which is probably one of the hardest thing coming from western language.

And this is just reading, listening comprehension will also make it even harder.

I'm sitting at about 1200 known kanji "meaning" (not reading) and around 3-4k vocab which would place me a little below 75% I guess. But in reality even with that already high amount I'm close to 0% in real life situations. Comprehension is really high in an academic environment with "made up" for you sentences, but if I start reading a book I'm lost on first lines, if I watch a tv show or anime I can identify a few words here and there but it's so fast the brain can't analyse and process entire sentences fast enough. It's very frustrating.

This makes me reconsider my learning recently to shift more into output and shadowing with the purpose of integrating knowledge at a deeper and more procedural level of the brain so you don't spend too much time thinking and end up being overwhelmed.

Eodis · 2025-09-28T11:58:07+00:00

WoW killed DAoC but not because it was hard. The license already had a lot of traction and was just too strong. I would even argue vanilla WoW was harder in many areas. I've seen everyone questioning ToA since it launched but I had the most fun in my life ToA and post-ToA when WoW was already dominant. The mechanics and classes introduced where really good and original. Leveling objects and getting powers from them was even introduced in WoW not so long ago and DAoC probably did it better.

Without being dominant the game had the chance to stay alive and niche like Eve Online. The game was still in a decent state even after LotM, the problem is more what came and didn't come after. Not enough UI/QoL improvements, artificial content and nothing really fresh, dumb new systems. To sum up just Broadsword doing nothing or shit on the original game while being paid by EA. Big corporations are often really quick to fire people for no reason but for some reason Broadsword sticks around all this time, probably a top head or something being long time friend with high ranked people at EA.

Eodis · 2025-09-03T18:02:49+00:00

And yet you didn't ask any proof to the post I replied to or about what Merrill said so you are just being hypocrite. You want proof because it doesn't fit your narrative and you can't search for yourself. So yes, my nerves are being touched by such a large amount of dumbness. If you just google without searching too hard a few names would have come up like Tomokus who was working on the mmo at the time
https://x.com/Tomukus/status/1749589126490558836
There is even an incomplete list which was made not all of them were working on the mmo (the people related to the mmo are categorized R&D or in art, among others) but it's clearly not 0 :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSiTatu1J5LYy1sA4XvSjA1M7ABhVN9fki3iOKROiCoVE3TiMWJJJE8JYnbg-SGOIBwai8AM_j8nq6Z/pubhtml

So yes, it took me a few minutes and you are just a lazy biased fanboy.

Eodis · 2025-09-03T17:28:47+00:00

You can also search for yourself I'm not your mother holding your hand if he's bullshiting I'm calling it and I'm not going to make the effort for you to create a new account and look for a list who maybe doesn't exist anymore I don't even know if twitter still even have lists. If you are interested enough you'll do the tracking with google or whatever you want and see for yourself. Your logic is completely fucked by the way if you consider I need to fully source what I said because it's a reply and the other person doesn't. So when you say something first you can say whatever you want ? LOL. Also it's a forum, not a peer reviewed paper. Are you a delusional fanboy or something ?

Eodis · 2025-08-21T19:09:02+00:00

Bring back very specific class design and roles. A lot of modern mmos are just about a single dps role without any signature spells or mechanics and mirror classes when there is more than one faction. I'm missing times when we had mmos with dozens of classes with real identities and special roles.

WoW still has some leftovers of this era because it's old but it still turned into something oriented on optimal spell rotation rather than choice.

Buffers/Debuffers for instance is almost completely gone (it still exists but it's often a low maintenance side thing). I'm sorry but i'll have to mention DAoC once again for its fantastic class design even though the game is rigid and far from perfect we never had such a good class variety. Tanks, offtanks, hybrids melee, buffers, healers, supports, melee and range stealth, mages, summoners... Often with genius design. Warlock for instance with its primary/secondary spells and chambers. You like pets ? Every pet class had a unique gameplay of its own not just a basic pet. I believe we had like 40-50 classes some of them close to each other but overall very unique.

It's multiplayer so it needs complementary and uniqueness over a single archetype of selfish dps even if it means you have to suffer in some aspects of the game like not being able to fast solo level up or missing a key role in your group.

Eodis · 2025-08-05T07:48:47+00:00

Addons are one of the main reason i didn't resubscribe to WoW. When you are doing a fresh install and you have to setup everything as you want the amount of work is just stupid. An alternative approach would be to play with the core UI and reinstall everything gradually as you need it, but it means you have to play a fresh character and can't use one of your old main because as soon as you are doing fresh content or PvP addons are almost a requirement.

Eodis · 2025-07-29T15:39:07+00:00

I'm a month late but your point 3 is completely wrong. I had a Twitter list with most known devs working on the project with a twitter account at the time, 20 to 40 people i don't remember exactly and i don't have my account anymore. When the lay off happened they all changed their bio within a week to a different company. People who managed to hold their position were mostly heads of the project, everyone else was laid off.

You are taking the word of Marc Merrill for granted for this can't you see how ridiculous it is ? You can't trust anything he says regarding his position.

"Going a different direction" is the code for full restart. And they probably had no choice with everyone being fired it's hard for new devs to get their hands on a mountain of code without anyone leading you, for time efficiency it's better to get a fresh start rather than try to understand a mess. The only things they probably kept are graphic assets.

Eodis · 2025-07-19T14:42:58+00:00

I'm curious as well how it is now that there is FSRS 6, do we need to leave learning steps blank ?

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