Tag: Drops

Sandbox MMOs have always had a rough time answering what sounds like a simple question: How do you balance drops in a game that is supposed to be driven by player crafting? For Albion Online, the answer is simple, you just make the drops player-crafted.

The Black Market doesn’t work like a normal NPC merchant, instead he will buy player crafted items based on supply and demand, for which a buy order can be generated by a player killing a mob, and when a certain number of buy orders are generated, the price will rise. Players can go to the black market and fulfill those buy orders directly or set up sell orders so that the item will automatically sell once their price is met.

In short, imagine it like this: The loot tables operate like normal, but there is finite stock based on what players are selling. So if Player B kills a goblin and his loot table pings an iron sword, the game will check to see if there is an iron sword available and if there is, drop it for Player B while Player A gets paid.

The system, in theory, allows Albion to increase drops and have mobs drop cooler stuff because it is all coming from other players. In addition, it creates an item/gold sink as some items are naturally lost in such a shady, back door environment.

You can check out the short video below.