There’s a notable change arriving to Albion Online’s land auctions, and while it might seem like a little thing it has far-reaching implications for the game’s overall economy. Simply put, the game is doing away with any sort of proxy bidding system, so while land owner bids still count double from new bidders, the full amount of the bid will be deducted upon winning. So if an owner bids 10 million (counts as 20 million) and a prospective new owner bids 16, the existing owner will have 10 million deducted instead of “enough to beat the other bidder.” If the owner bids 100 million? Then 100 million is deducted, even if the next-highest bid was 16 million.
The net result, then, is that bids cannot be made in perfect safety; a bid of 50 million by the owner will cost 50 million if it wins, even if every other bid is significantly lower. It remains to be seen if this will help balance the costs and opportunities of ownership, but it’s certainly a big change to how bidding works, and perhaps a reminder for certain players that throwing money at maintaining ownership could get… expensive.
