Hello all!
As we want Albion Online to be focused primarily on Player versus Player and Guild versus Guild fighting, we’ve striven to make these aspects of the game as fair and exciting as possible!
In Albion Online guilds can claim or conquer areas for their own, which are then known as their territories.
Guilds can own as many territories as they can capture and hold onto, and these territories provide shelter and resources to their battle-weary warriors.
However, situations will arise in which you’ll have to fight bravely for your territory! Though Albion Online has a massive, unlimited open PvP system, we wanted to create special features and mechanics for GvG. In the following article we’ll introduce the basic mechanics of Albion Online’s GvG fighting, as well as other systems put in place to make the battles both fair and exciting. Read on for details…
On the Eve of Battle…
In order to make GvG fighting fair for both parties, we have implemented a system which stops enemy players from being able to attack your safe territories while your guild members are offline. For most of the day, your territories are protected by your magical barrier, through which only members of your guild or friendly members of other guilds are allowed.
You will find yourself investing a lot of time and effort into building up your guild territories, so it would be a shame to lose them over night while you were sleeping. Before your guild’s territory can be attacked, you must choose a certain number of times during the day at which your territory will then be ‘open’ to attack. Any attacking guilds must attack at one of these times; at any other time, they will be barred from entering your territory.
A few brave soldiers…
We want guilds of all shapes and sizes to feel that they can make their mark (literally!) on the world of Albion, so we wanted to restrict the size of the GvG battles to accommodate smaller guilds and reward them for their skill in battle rather than their sheer size.
This is why GvG territory battles in Albion Online will be restricted to 5v5. Both the attacking and defending guilds will be notified prior to the battle commencing, and will at this point have to choose their five best warriors to battle over the territory. We hope this will prevent zerging and give smaller guilds a chance for territory.
Choose fast and choose wisely; as the time of battle nears, the 10 players will be teleported to the battlefield and won’t come back until they gain victory… Or suffer defeat! Players can either volunteer themselves for battle, or can be nominated for the fight by a guild member whose position affords them that right.
You will also have the option of hiring mercenaries. As we think it’s so important to cater to guilds of all persuasions, we don’t want Albion Online to be run by guilds purely focused on PvP. If you’re just in Albion Online to craft, trade, fight mobs, or just anything to avoid PvP, our mercenary system is for you! If you’ve got a guild harassing you for your territory, you can put a bounty out on them. Have a look through the up-to-date list of the most successful mercenaries; then choose one you think will get the job done, and send them off to fight for you!
We want to make sure all kinds of guilds have something to take from Albion Online.
Love thy neighbor…
We also wanted to make the system of territory expansion very strategic. Claiming territory should be a challenge, and we want guilds to actively and thoroughly plan a strategy for claiming a certain area. The world map will act as your war rooms as you carefully plan how you’ll expand your borders.
In Albion Online, you’ll only be able to attack a territory if it shares its borders with a territory you already own. That means you’ll be able to attack a neighboring territory, but not a territory which is in a different region of the map.
So there’s a small introduction to our GvG fighting. We’ll go into more detail about what exactly will happen to those 10 players once they’re teleported to the battlefield another time… Until then, if you have any questions about this or other aspects of Albion Online, don’t hesitate to ask us via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+. We read all of your comments and questions and really appreciate all of your feedback!