Albion Develops City Fights
The Syndicate has been working with Sandbox Interactive for quite some time by this point. Albion has gone from a rough concept that had promise but also needed lots of work... into a polished game with lots of great features that The Syndicate helped to guide through its consulting, testing and feedback. A major new feature was being developed (20v20 battles for control of large cities) and The Syndicate was asked to step in and evaluate that. In addition, features such as mounts and boss fights were also explored.

We assembled a team of testers and, working with the developers, arranged scenarios for Syndicate team's to test. 20v20 fights were setup and captured on video. Those fights were participated in by the developers as well. Data was collected from participants and the videos and server side logging was mined to find other data. The results of that effort, as it was throughout the Albion development process, was a stronger end product. Sandbox Interactive was extremely engaged and actively sought feedback. While there were some more open tests to see how different groups reacted to the same content, The Syndicate was always the core of the testing process. Very detailed, honest and open feedback was always provided and Sandbox always took it seriously.

Albion is one of those games that started with a big vision but whose initial version fell way short of meeting player expectations... but the developer is committed to making a strong product so they listened.. adapted.. stuck to their overall vision but added elements and changes and features that players wanted.. and built a very good game. The Syndicate was glad to play a big role in that process. And when you watch those official trailer videos and you see groups of players fighting each other or defeating bosses, you are watching Syndicate members working with the developers to test and tweak that content.