Sandbox Interactive continues to rack in improvements to the upcoming Albion Online, the latest of which was the improvements to the Outlands of Hector.
According to the Game Director of Albion Online, in addition to major changes Galahad brings to the Outlands, there are some minor things will be improved in Outlands, such as the roles and goals of the Outlands cities and reward balancing while they don’t want to change the lawless identity of the black zones.
Here is a video that introduce the exact changes are coming to the Outlands and adjustments in the Hector update:
Portal To The Outlands – Caerleon
The current Outlands cities are not fulfilling their roles of being a home for guilds without territories or players who have been excluded from the Royal Continent. For this reason, the developing team decided to remove all cities in the Outlands, as well as all harbors. Instead, a massive portal will now be available in Caerleon, the center city of the Royal Continent.
This portal will lead to different parts of the Outlands, with four exits per region of the Outlands. These exits are different per arena of the Outlands. The low regions will have green exits, the mid region yellow exits and the high-end region red exits. Using the portal is free of costs, but it will bind you the exit you have used for a short time, as well as the region of the Outlands you travelled to for a longer amount of time. This limits how guilds can project their force in the Outlands, while still allowing Caerleon to function as a hub for the Outlands. Finally, Caerleon will now be considered a black zone citiy, allowing players with a Nefarious or Dreaded reputation to enter.
Increased Rewards And Other Changes
Game Director Robin Henkys stated that there are two changes coming to the rewards of the Outlands. The first one is that, the resource distribution is being adjusted. All parts of the Outlands are getting the same amount of resources, but will have different rates of enchanted resources. The higher areas are getting an increased rate. Overall, the black zones will have a significantly higher amount of enchanted resources compared to the Royal Continent. This creates a really strong incentive for gatherers to go to the Outlands, if they want to get their hands on level two and three enchanted materials.
The second change of rewards is changing the way watchtower territories work to make GvG more attractive. Watchtowers will now be the only place in the world where you can find Tier 8 resources. On top of that, resources will respawn at the start of the prime time of the territory. This means that at that time, or right after the first GvG fight, you can begin to harvest those resources. If your guild does not own a watchtower territory, you can still get your hands on Tier 8 resources as you can now raid watchtowers and collect its high-end resources, even if it does not belong to you.
Evacuate To Safe Places
Albion Online is removing the harbors and black zone cities are being as well as their banks and cityplots. Robin recommended that players who have any items stored in one of the following maps need to move them to a safe place before Hector goes live. Marketplaces and islands linked to soon-to-be removed maps will be moved to Caerleon.
- Aberdown Harbor
- Cawl Quay
- Clack Quay
- Farewich
- Fort Thursair
- Harlech Quay
- Lowe Quay
- Lyme Harbor
- Mull Quay
- Noss Quay
- Pember Quay
- Sheerbrough
- Sunder Quay
- Tenby Quay
Plus, anti-zerg display in the Outlands is on testing mode on the Albion Online live server. The mechanism shows groups of more than ten players on the minimap, and should in general provide more balanced fights and overall action. The display is not confirmed to be enabled or not.