Since July 17th, the sandbox MMO Albion Online by publisher and developer Sandbox Interactive has been officially released. As is typical with MMO launches, the release of Albion Online was not without its problems. It is, however, unusual for an indie MMO to see such a large influx of players.
Estimated Wait Time: One Hour! Long Queues in the MMO
It is more rule than exception that everything goes wrong at the initial release of an MMORPG. From Blizzard to Wargaming, whenever a new title sees the light of launch, something usually goes awry. This was also the case with Albion Online.
Already on the second day of the staggered release, it became noticeable, and by the third and final release, it was clear that the game’s only server could hardly withstand a potential influx of players.
While they tried to prepare for the launch using experiences from various testing phases, it seems that no one at Sandbox Interactive anticipated the sheer number of new players. Frequent server crashes were the inevitable result of the MMO’s immense popularity.
However, many players did not even make it that far. Due to the massive load in the first days after release, the situation meant waiting in line for an extended period—sometimes for hours.
The queues, before one could even connect to the servers, were sometimes several thousand players long, and the estimated wait time was impressive. If one was lucky, the servers did not go down again during the wait. Then the fun began anew.
Lag Issues Complicate Gameplay in Cities
Another issue that was not considered during the testing phases: the increasing overcrowding of the few large cities in Albion Online with the increase in players.
Due to the circular, zone-based layout of the world, there are currently massive character clusters in the inner cities of Albion’s main continent. A direct result of this is that players are unable to act in these overcrowded areas. Nothing works, moving is impossible, as is interacting with various merchants, chests, or banks.
Too Successful for Launch?
In the official game forum, possible solutions to these problems have been discussed since launch, and it quickly became clear: it wouldn’t be that easy.
Early in the game’s development, it was clear that Albion Online would run on only one server. This was intended to create a vibrant, populated game world that feels and experiences as such—larger clusters of characters in specific areas would be a part of that. The splitting of the server, which would likely quickly mitigate the overcrowding issue, was never up for debate.
From the developer side in the forum, it was mentioned that they wanted to wait first. Albion Online was never meant to be a game for the masses, which is why they were not prepared for such a massive influx at launch.
The publisher and developer are confident that the number of accounts will stabilize over time. After all, the first week after the release of a new MMO is statistically always the strongest in terms of sales and players.
Solution Approach: Even More Waiting Times!
In the meantime, they will definitely be considering further solutions to address the most important issues, especially the inaccessibility of key cities.
The development team sees possible solutions, for example, in instancing heavily visited areas of the various cities.
For example, the market and the bank of the game could be placed on a separate cluster. They are also considering splitting the large cities into individual areas. None of these solutions, however, would be something that could be implemented quickly and thoughtlessly into the game. Stefan Wiezorek, CEO and Founder of Sandbox Interactive stated in a forum post:
“Fellow Adventurers,
after the very hectic launch week has passed, we like to give you some background information on server performance. Prior to release, we created several forecast scenarios about post-launch player population. We also upgraded our hardware to the maximum level possible. As it turned out, even our most optimistic forecasts about player numbers were exceeded significantly. This caused a set of issues. Our goal is to fix most or all of them over the next 5-10 days.
[…]
Now, on a more general level, we could tackle the issues that we have right now by reducing the number of players that the servers allow at the moment. However, this would mean that thousands or players would have to wait in queues. We made the decision that we’d rather have the occasional server outage instead. In addition to the technical matters, we will also look into game balance to deal with the overcrowding of certain zones. In particular, we’ll look into the respawn rates of resources and might give them a temporary boost while such a large number of players stands at the same progression levels, competing over the same resources.”
Temporarily, they will make cities accessible for fewer players at the same time. While the actual technical limits of the areas lie at about 1400 accounts, there are currently significant problems with up to 1000 active players simultaneously.
It was also noted here that this would merely be a temporary solution. Making important cities only partially accessible would pose significant disadvantages, especially for those players whose guilds or private islands are connected to them. However, this currently seems to be one of the few solutions that could be applied relatively quickly.
How Empty is Multiplayer Still?
It is clear: There are no simple solutions to this problem. An possibly premature division of the mega server could prove disadvantageous if player numbers decline as expected over the coming weeks and months.
Instead of wandering through a vibrant, admittedly overcrowded world to cross desolate landscapes, that is not the point of an MMO.
However, it remains questionable whether waiting and hoping that player numbers will settle on their own is the right approach. Many contributions in the official Albion Online forum have repeatedly raised concerns about the poor launch conditions as a reason why they turned away from the title after such a short time.
We will keep you updated on future changes to the game as usual.
For a good start: 7 beginner tips to ease your entry
