Now that Albion Online has officially launched, what’s the verdict? It’s a little hard to get a feel for that, since I haven’t seen a huge crowd heading off to play it, but I do know that there are some that have been waiting for this colorful sandbox MMO.
Occasional Hero posted his launch impressions, saying, “Playing Albion feels a lot like going back to RuneScape. It’s an isometric, crafting-focused, click-to-move game where players have to compete for resources. Even the graphics are similar […] If I get to the endgame and everything I need is walled inside PvP zones controlled by massive, EVE-style guild conglomerates, I won’t be sticking around. Sadly, from a lot of the player feedback I’ve been hearing, it sounds like that’s what a lot of it is going to end up being.”
And SparkoMarkoGaming has done us all a service by blogging through his first few days in the game. “I knew what to expect from playing the beta and nothing seemed to have changed in the gameplay,” he noted.
Continue with us on our journey through MMO blog essays in this week’s Global Chat! On deck is a look at Star Citizen’s alpha, an evaluation of Secret World Legends, and a look at gamers’ “play personalities.”
Braxwolf: Is Star Citizen’s ‘Verse starting to come together?
“I’ll give it to them, for what little it seems RSI has done in five years, they’ve done most of it very well. The graphics/atmosphere is both gritty and polished. The sound effects are fantastic. The dogfighting can be fun, but can also be frustrating. Moving within the world is non-instanced and seamless, whether you’re traveling through an airlock onto the landing pad, or stepping out from your ship into the vastness of space, it feels like one big world.”
Thinking Play: What is your play personality?
“According to Stuart Brown, while we’re all a mix of these personalities, and our preferences might change over time, or be different in different contexts, most of us do have dominant types. He believes that identifying your own types can be useful for self-awareness and finding greater satisfaction in your play.”
“As time goes on I often finding myself wandering backwards, looking for games that offer more classic combat with simple systems. Sure I try all the new stuff, it seems the shiny seems to wear off quickly in a world where action combat is becoming more popular but causes me to log off and putting on a wrist brace. Or the games I once loved have really taken a direction I don’t care for. Today I thought I’d share some of the games I’ve been dabbling with while touching on that nostalgic feeling I miss.”
Light Falls Gracefully: Secret World Legends, one month in
“Just as Ptahmose ‘lovingly’ murdered his children and sealed them inside statues in the City of the Sun God where they sing a song that keeps the Black Pharaoh imprisoned, so too have our old selves been rendered impotent and sent into stasis. We have been recast into bodies with faces that sometimes scarcely resemble our old features; the many hours we spent in our previous life have been wiped away and supplanted by a new siren’s song designed to prevent darkness from overtaking the balance sheets.”
Parallel Context: RIFT revisited
“RIFTÂ also does well with representation and an overall lack of cringeworthy material. The NPCs look like they belong in Telara and aren’t there just for eye candy. The dialog among the NPCs isn’t ridiculous. The PCs run and walk and fight and stand like you’d expect normal people to behave when it’s all business, and the PCs don’t look like they’re preening or strutting or are on a catwalk.”
Self Distract Sequence: The stuff of legends
“Gear also comes in three different levels of quality, denoted by their name prefix or suffix and visually with one to three golden pips on their icons. In the case of talismans, you’re given medium quality (two pips) luminous talismans after the tutorial and from completing main story quests. There are also lower quality (one pip) ‘faded’ and higher quality (three pips) ‘radiant’ versions of the same talisman out there. Ideally, you’ll want to aim at getting a full set of radiant talismans, and then levelling those up to legendary level, as those have slightly higher base stats than the same gear in faded and luminous quality variants.”
Every day there are tons of terrific, insightful, and unusual articles posted across the MMO gaming blogosphere — and every day, Justin reads as many as he can. Global Chat is a sampling of noteworthy essays, rants, and guides from the past few weeks of MMO discourse.
