• Disallowed furniture placement around orbs in Watchtower territories
• Increased number of guards in Watchtower territories
• Siphoning Mages:
  • Alert radius: 10m → 25m (this means that mages will now call for help from the surrounding guards)
  • Fame: 597 → 4588
  • Energy drop on kill reduced by 10%
  • Season points on kill reduced by 10%
• Guard (Soldier)
  • Warcry spell reworked:
    • It is now only triggered when at least 6 enemies are on its aggro list
    • The spell now increases damage and defense of other guards (this stacks up the more players are on the aggro list and the more guards are in combat at once)
  • Fame: 153 → 306
  • Pursuit radius: 25m → 45m
• Guard (Archer)
  • Fame: 138 → 276
  • Pursuit radius: 25m → 45m

• Disallowed furniture placement around portals and Expedition NPCs

• Fixed a visual bug where treasure urns would reappear briefly after being destroyed
• Fixed an issue where channeling a spell while mounted would interrupt movement
• Mad Shadowmask (Hardcore) and Mad Fuzzy will now execute players as intended
• Fort Sterling Cape now triggers correctly while mounted
• Numerous additional graphical, animation, texture, environmental, audio, and localization fixes

A new referral season starts today! From now until the end of the year, refer your friends and get three exclusive items: the Recruiter's Fox Crop, the Recruiter's Hunter Statue, and the Recruiter's Dire Fox.

The new referral season lasts until January 1, 2019. There are three ways to collect referrals and earn a Dire Fox:

• The easiest way is by sending Trial Keys to your friends. Each key redeemed on an account without a key on it will count toward your referral season progress.
• Additionally, any Starter Pack that you buy and that gets redeemed on an account without a key will also count toward your progress.
• And last but not least: if a friend registers through your referral link, then buys and redeems a Starter Pack on their account, you’ll also progress.

To get an overview of your current progress this season, and to see the FAQ for the referral system, click here.

The past few months have seen an influx of excellent videos chronicling solo black zone play in Albion. The selection below showcases everything from single-player duels to treasure hunting to solo ganking, and even some good old-fashioned trolling.

We start off with Zulmer, who shows off some excellent Warbow skills in PvP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSNDRhaqKMM
In a similar vein, Nausk, perhaps Albion's best-known Warbow player, returns with another episode of his Black Zone Tales series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STjRgFmIDaw
Helgulfr, guild leader of Gypsies (recently profiled here) shows off some impressive Heron Spear PvP skills:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRr8NqxJMDU
Next up are two videos from Gugusteh, whose videos present interesting high-level solo-play narratives set in Albion's ruthless Outlands. Here's "Albion Online: A Solo PvE Story":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TvZ4vlycQ8
And here's the more PvP-centric "Albion Online: A Solo Adventure":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEQiva0mLd4
Does honor exist in the lawless Outlands? Join Elsa for a high-stakes 1v1 black zone duel with a surprising outcome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfSxTddtjEE
Renzgar Pangrim uses the Bloodletter to deadly effect as a solo ganker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5_aJODI4xA
And finally, as a bonus, join Readytime for a masterclass in black-zone trolling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9r5ZvNgGKw

Guild name: HustlinHitmans
Alliance: POE
Guild leaders: Norgannon
Date founded: August 10, 2017
Number of members: 250+
Primary language: Spanish

Founded just after the game's launch, HustlinHitmans is one of Albion's foremost Spanish-speaking guilds. With a powerful ZvZ presence and a focus on exclusively black-zone content, the guild takes an all-in approach to combat, dungeon diving, and a wide range of other activities.

Tell us about your guild. What sort of activities do you focus on? What sort of members are you looking for?

We are a guild focused on PvP although we cover all the activities offered by Albion: ZvZ, ganking, raiding, Hellgates, GvG, gatherer caravans, resource guardians, almost neverending rounds of Fame farming in the open-world dungeons, and even a few HCEs (haha). We are looking for Spanish-speaking players who want to progress and play in a group.

Where is your guild primarily located? What regions in Albion do you focus on?

We are a 100% black-zone guild. Our city is in Cumbria but we don't just limit ourselves to there. We are mostly in Mercia and Cumbria.

What were some of your most memorable battles/activities?

Damn what a difficult question. I have been playing for over a year now, we have had many incredible ZvZ battles in OOPS in their golden moments when WOKE still stomped and even after they dissolved.



What does your guild do for fun?

All types of content offered by the game. We are a very active guild, so at any given time you can find a dive party, a ganking party, and maybe several Hellgate groups.

What is your guild's approach to the game? Do you have any sort of overarching philosophy?

Our foundations are to have a community based on respect and friendship. Objectives are to have strong GvG teams and our solid zerg.

What are your goals for the future? What is your ultimate goal in the world of Albion?

Beat the Syndic team in a scrim lmao. No, we really do not have ultimate goals, we plan to play Albion for much longer and keep on having fun.

Anything else to share about your guild?

If you are fluent in Spanish and want to find a place to develop and learn about Albion in all its aspects, you are more than welcome!

Check out HustlinHitmans in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6AbwVyM-ac

Fall is in the air, and Halloween is coming! Halloween decorations have returned to all of Albion's cities.

Based on community feedback, the following cooldowns now apply:

• After joining a guild, you may not join another guild for 48 hours.
• After joining an alliance, your guild may not join another alliance for 48 hours.
• LEAVING a guild or alliance does not trigger any cooldown period.

This change has been introduced during the early phases of Season 4 to shake up GvG combat, keep the season interesting, and put smaller and newer guilds on more even footing with larger and more established ones.

Additionally, also based on community feedback, killing Siphoning Mages will now once again yield season points. In order to prevent exploits, this means that we're also removing the ability to place Siphoning and Rogue Mages for energy. This change should serve to keep the current season vital, while also leaving the possibility open that mages will be further updated or replaced with a new system in future seasons.

Warhorses are a new item available from the Vanity Merchant in major cities. These mount overlays can be combined with any T5-T8 Armored Horse to create a visual upgrade that keeps the stats of the original mount while prominently displaying the owner's guild logo.

• Fatal Blade (Black Monk Staff)
  • Cooldown now scales with item power. (Example values: 1200IP → 18s / 1700 IP → 16s)
  • Slow now always lasts the intended 6s, and no longer scales with ability power

• Numerous open-world maps now include more choke points to allow for a broader range of combat options
• Respawn bubble behavior has been updated:
  • Players no longer receive a protection bubble on login
  • Players no longer get a protection bubble on respawn, i.e. after death
  • Expeditions now have a separate protection bubble type which lasts for 10 seconds or a distance of 10 meters, whichever ends first
• The two final mages in the Hardcore Expedition "Preaching to the Dead" are now further from the boss to make the last encounter slightly less difficult
• Bonecrusher Berserker (red version) no longer uses Sunder Armor, and Smash should now be easier to avoid
• Bonecrusher Hulk's War Stomp, Boulder, and Kick skills should now be slightly easier to avoid

• Fixed an issue where loot was incorrectly protected during city GvGs
• Fixed an issue where character movement would stop when a targetable spell was activated and then canceled
• The standtime for Frazzle (Arcane Staff) has been reduced from 0.4s to 0s (i.e. eliminated) as intended
• Fixed an issue where hitting "Esc" would not toggle game menu in upper right corner
• Fixed Veteran Obsessed Aspirant aggro reset in Hardcore Expeditions (the mob was always resetting aggro, making it impossible to kill)
• Numerous additional graphical, animation, texture, environmental, audio, and localization fixes

With the fourth Guild Warfare Season already underway, GvG warfare has once again come to the world of Albion. The Season 4 Patch, coming October 10, will bring an important change that has long been requested by the Albion Online community: limits on guild- and alliance-hopping.

After maintenance on the 10th, the following rules will apply:

• After joining a guild, you cannot join another guild for 48 hours.
• After joining an alliance, your guild cannot join another alliance for 48 hours.
• LEAVING a guild or alliance does not trigger any cooldown period.

We've received a great deal of feedback on this issue, with the general sentiment that the ability to jump from guild to guild with no penalty helps larger guilds maintain their holds on territories and contributes to stagnation of GvG seasons by maintaining the status quo. As such, we're introducing it during this early phase of Season 4 to shake up GvG combat, keep the season interesting, and put smaller and newer guilds on more even footing with larger and more established ones.



Additionally, based on community feedback, killing Siphoning Mages will now once again yield season points. In order to prevent exploits, this means that we're also removing the ability to place mages for energy. This change should open up the possibility for players to contribute to their guild's season success outside of GvGs and reset days.



Also coming with this patch are Warhorses, a new item available from the Vanity Merchant in major cities. These mount overlays can be combined with any T5-T8 Armored Horse to create a Warhorse, which keeps the stats of the original mount while prominently displaying the owner's guild logo. Warhorses are perfect for large-scale guild battles, allowing you to stay visible to fellow guild members, rally fellow alliance members, or intimidate your foes – and look good doing it.

Based on community feedback, we've also updated numerous open-world maps to include more choke points, which allow for a broader range of combat options. Whether you're an attacker or a defender, make sure you're aware of these lower-mobility spots and use them to your advantage!

All the details of the Season 4 Patch will be published soon in the Feedback Testserver forum.

The new GvG Season starts this weekend - and we'll be covering everything live on the AlbionTV Twitch channel. Tune in Saturday at 17:00 UTC with hosts Lewpac and Shozen as they introduce the start of the season. At 18:00 UTC, the season officially begins, and guilds can claim territories and launch attacks. 

You can also tune in every Thursday at 18:00 UTC for GvG Highlights from the previous week. For all the important dates coming up this season, check out this forum post.

Here's the full season's streaming schedule:

Guild name: Voidcore
Alliance: EGO
Guild leaders: Ryandro, MrChuffington
Date founded: May 1, 2018
Number of members: 192
Primary language: English

Voidcore is a relatively recent guild, but its founders have been playing together for much longer as members of other guilds that often joined up for various activities. While they're known as a competitive force in the open world (and have been part of some fairly high-profile drama within various alliances), their primary goal is to create interesting content for their members in a relaxed, expectation-free atmosphere.

Tell us about your guild. What sort of activities do you focus on? What sort of members are you looking for?

We are definitely a very laid back guild with a focus on a variety of different content. We host inhouse scrims, and daily Fame farm groups where everyone and their dog is welcome to take part. We've also held tournaments, which we are hoping to run monthly – the first one was a success, and even with just our guild taking part we were able to field three separate teams. We also have a Player of the Week event, in which players try to gain the highest mob, gathering, or PvP Fame and win up to 3 million Silver per category.

We're looking for members who want to get involved in the game and the various events we host. We want to be competitive but also want all our members to have fun and not feel left out.

Where is your guild primarily located? What regions in Albion do you focus on?

Not having a home plot ourselves we are primarily based in Caerleon so we have access to both Royal and Outland continents. We focus primarily on Mercia due to it having a higher resource enchantment rate and also higher-tiered zones to Fame in. But we are happy in any zone as we can always find things to do.



Do you have any particular rivalries or ongoing quarrels with other guilds?

Every guild that knows Ryandro (GM) seems to have a beef with our guild, luckily it just makes us a stronger unit. But we also have a very short attention span and don't really care for the politics of other alliances and guilds who may hold a grudge, we just do our own thing regardless. Although it has gotten us into more trouble than it’s worth with our previous alliances.

What were some of your most memorable battles/activities?

We have many, but most of our memorable battles are the banter battles on Discord. We do a lot of PvP so our battles don’t stick to our memory that much.

What does your guild do for fun?

Other than bantering in Discord, we host various events that we strongly encourage our members to take part in. We want members to feel part of the whole and not just another cog in the machine. We don't force people to do anything they don't want to do, we have found it keeps our players interested in the game and keeps them coming back to the game and the guild. The game allows you to make your own fun and we try and do things the guild members want to do.

What is your guild's approach to the game? Do you have any sort of overarching philosophy?

We want content, we want fun, and we can do it ourselves. We don't have time for elitism but we do have time for new players who want to learn and experience the game outside of the Royal zones.

What are your goals for the future? What is your ultimate goal in the world of Albion?

Ultimate goal? Having the game swallowed whole by the Void!

Future goals are to continue growing as a community whilst having constant content for our members to enjoy.

Check out Voidcore in action (contains mild profanity):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlKQ7PkYhlU

A new referral season starts today! Refer your friends and get three new rewards: the Recruiter's Hunter Horn, the Recruiter's Deer Statue, and the Recruiter's Giant Stag.

The new referral season lasts until October 24. There are three ways to collect referrals and earn a Giant Stag:

• The easiest way is by sending Trial Keys to your friends. Each key redeemed on an account without a key on it will count toward your referral season progress.
• Additionally, any Starter Pack that you buy and that gets redeemed on an account without a key will also count toward your progress.
• And last but not least: if a friend registers through your referral link, then buys and redeems a Starter Pack on their account, you'll also progress.

To get an overview of your current progress this season, and to see the FAQ for the referral system, click here.

Join Game Director Robin Henkys, Combat Designer Michael Schwahn, and your Community Lead and host Evoque as they present the next Albion Online Roadmap. The livestream will take place on AlbionTV, the official Albion Online Twitch channel, this Thursday, September 27 at 18:00 UTC.

They'll discuss what players can expect for Albion Online over the coming months, then move to a Q&A phase where they address the most-asked questions from the forums. During this time, they'll also compile questions directly from the chat, and will address as many of these questions as possible in the final part of the broadcast.

Make sure to tune in on Thursday for a preview of what's coming to the world of Albion!