Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Albion city workshops: not just for ripoff

So far it seems I'm staying in Albion Online. If you want to try it out, here is my referral link! Warning: The game is still in beta, so it can change. "Change" in video game development is a politically correct term for "nerfed to the ground to cater to paying morons and slackers". Continue on your own risk, don't blame me! The game currently looks the most fitting to the "player can make an impact on the game world" hope. This promotional video tells what the game is promised to be. Of course there is a chance that it will become a "get everything from running piss-easy instanced dungeons", but one can hope.

If you open the zone map of a city, you see more than the buildings you regularly use: marketplace, chest, island merchant, repair station. The cities are large and full of buildings:

These buildings are player owned. There are plots that you can buy in an auction and build a building on it. This feature has a bad name because most building owners set very high tax rates to rip off the morons who don't think about alternatives but use the first.

However there is another business model and let me introduce LadyValeria, one of the practitioners of the mutually beneficial trade. I never met her in person or know anything about her, but I've found her building, marked on the map above:

9% tax isn't that high, only 7 silvers for a Travertine block. "But my island building is free!" Yes, but city plots have an advantage, material returns! You get 15% of the material back from processing or crafting, and the price 233 Sandstones and 116 Limestone blocks are higher than the 2101 silvers LadyValeria gets, so it's better for me to use her building instead of my own:

However, if you use transmute feature, you get no material return, so your own processing building has a point:

The lesson for today is to not ignore the buildings of other players in the open cities, just because most of them are operated by scammers.

3 comments:

Looch said...

It is an extremely lucrative business. The plots that are occupied now are owned by players which straight sold their gold at test start (even at crap conversion) to buy it.

Cost of unoccupied plot is quiet cheap and varies as per distance from the city center.

After 30 days, the auctions will begin again. Even owner needs to bid (counts double). If you win you will take plot+building.

Legit usage of the plot (not ripping off) is very good actually - anything below 10% usage fee is very interesting. You gives also good rewards for feeding the worker there.
Being test start, most of the plots are sadly occupied by people ripping you off - this will usually change after 1 or 2 auctions as they usually quit to play.

Smokeman said...

Is there an in-game list of what building does what and at what tax rate, or do you have to just wander around looking at them all?

I assume there is not, as that would solve the "ripping off" problem right quick. The Yellow Pages, "You are Here!" signs in malls... helping people find what they need is a well solved problem.

Hanura H'arasch said...

@Smokeman: You can hover over the building on the map to see what it does and at what tax rate. M&S simply don't look at the map.