LinuxGameNetwork
Albion Online is an MMO that prides itself on having a completely player-driven economy. Part of that is players being able to purchase plots of land in major cities and setup crafting stations on them. Once a crafting station is placed on a plot, other players can use it for their crafting needs.
In exchange for a tax on goods produced, players get a bonus to their crafting output that makes the whole transaction mutually beneficial. But lately, taxes on crafting stations have gotten too high for players to turn much of a profit on what they produce. And it's believed that cartels are to blame for raising taxes to unsustainable levels by purchasing all the land plots. Sandbox Interactive have now taken steps to potentially curb this effect.
Public land plots periodically go up for auction to see who will get ownership in the next rotation. In the past, no matter how much a plot owner bid, the maximum they would have to pay for the plot would be 1 silver plus the amount of the second highest bid. This meant that players could maintain ownership of plots almost indefinitely by simply having a large enough bank roll.
The change implemented today means that the full amount of the winning bid will be collected from the winner, regardless of their current ownership of the plot. Land owners will now have to carefully follow the market to be able to bid properly on their plots. Otherwise they risk losing it entirely, or spending too much silver and becoming unprofitable.
It will be very interesting to see how these changes play out and how it effects the economy in Albion Online.
Source: Albion Online website
