Just started Albion again after playing it back in the days and I'm now in the South Wind Clan cellar. I totally remember that I found some really nice weapons and armor here, but this time, there is only some garbage and knives. I checked two walkthroughs (this and this) where they talk about leather shields and heavy short swords.
I also checked a map (this) to be sure that I didn't just miss something.
Is loot randomized? Did the GOG version mess something up (like the gender symbols)? Am I just being stupid/blind and everyone else finds those items without problems?

Alright, seems I'm officially too dumb to loot everything properly. Thanks for verifying!

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but:

You are not dumb. I have found out that the German version is slightly more difficult than English/French due to some chests containing less items (and gold). I have verified this by comparing INITIAL directories of the German version - the chest XLD files differ. A lot (most?) chests are from the first cellar, I think. You will not find "6 x turq. healing potion" in German version, for instance. Also, you'll find less gold.

I think this is due to fact that the German version shipped first as a 1.37 version. The developers decided to make the beginning slightly less difficult, I guess. There exists a 1.38 patch for the German version (which GOG applied), but that only updates the executables and the systexts file (which GOG copied wrongly to the root directory, so the old one is used ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). The fix for the female gender character is also missing (fixed in new fonts xld, also containing French special characters, I think) - therefore the weird Female symbol I remember from the demo version (1.37) also appears on the "half 1.38" GOG German version.

It is completely possible, however, to create a fully patched German version from the English/French version. You have to, however, extract/recreate the iso file (I am playing the Windows port). Use either language version as a template, add the Deutsch directory (with texts) to xldlibs on CD, replace the intro/credits smk videos (on CD) with the German videos, copy flics0.xld (not 100% sure about the name) from xldlibs to either CD xldlibs root or Deutsch subdirectory (both will work) and replace the game (non-cd) xldlibs/initial directory with en/fr files. Change setup.ini to language=1.

Please note that changes to INITIAL directory will take place when starting a new game, it will not change anything in current saves.

It would be nice to see the fully patched GOG German version, but everyone has the needed files, they just need to be combined properly.

Amazing info, thank you very much for necroing :) I'll definitly archive this info together with the installers for future playthroughs

Thank you. I also did not find the Axe in the second act (first island), which is the best weapon you can give Tom at this point in the game. Because I played this game several times, I KNOW where it is supposed to be, but it is not there.

So that explains it: I play the German version.

Guess I have to wait til the next island before I can get better weapons for Tom.

WOW! That is new to me, too. And I like the 13 DMG axe so much. Funny that the original (German) and also French are having less loot. Buggers.

@ SYSTEXTS file

The German patch for version 1.38 consists of:

XLDLIBS\GERMAN\SYSTEXTS
ALBION.EXE
MAIN.EXE

I think GOG used the zip version of this patch. This version of the patch doesn't have the extra folders.

Therefore to fix the problem create the folder GERMAN inside "..\Albion\XLDLIBS" and copy or move the file in the folder "..\Albion" to this new folder.

Based on drujd's observations I examined the three different versions. Excluding the language files and videos, the following files are different on the CD of the German version:

..\ALBION\XLDLIBS\FONTS0.XLD
..\ALBION\XLDLIBS\ITEMNAME.DAT
..\ALBION\XLDLIBS\MAPDATA1.XLD
..\ALBION\XLDLIBS\MAPDATA2.XLD
..\ALBION\XLDLIBS\MAPDATA3.XLD
..\ALBION\XLDLIBS\MONCHAR0.XLD

..\ALBION\XLDLIBS\INITIAL\CHESTDT1.XLD
..\ALBION\XLDLIBS\INITIAL\CHESTDT5.XLD

I saw how the correct patch works, see the post with the SYSTEXTS file. It seems that the game engine checks and loads the files in the game folder before checking and loading the corresponding files on the CD. I used the English CD and copied the files from above to the game folder of the German version and overwrote existing files (CHESTDT1.XLD, CHESTDT5.XLD). After that I started a new game and saw that the gender symbols are now fixed. However, I can't say anything about the loot. This could be a possible solution without extracting and recreating the CD ISO.

Edit: I created a zip file with the files from above.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zcsav07g6yt860w/Albion_XLDLIBS.ZIP/file

Create a backup copy of XLDLIBS in the game folder.
Copy the files to the Albion game folder and overwrite the existing files (CHESTDT1.XLD, CHESTDT5.XLD).

I had now the time to play Albion using the changes in my previous posts. I found in the South Wind Clan cellar the same items as RP1. I also think it plays now like the English 1.38 version. Instead of creating a new German CD ISO you can use the way I described above to "complete" the German version before starting a new game.