In episode 79 of “Forged in Aeternum,” titled “Balance of Power,” hosts J.R., Pex Design Lead, and Josh Hurley, Combat Designer, explored several key updates and features poised to impact New World. This episode provided insights into the enhancements planned for the game, highlighting the critical role of the Public Test Realm (PTR) in refining these updates for Season Five.

Introduction of PvD and Gameplay Adjustments

A novel aspect, Player versus Door (PvD), was briefly discussed, illustrating the team’s response to community feedback on gameplay mechanics. Adjustments have been made to address the balance of certain in-game elements, including an OPR door known for its high health and quick healing, to improve the overall player experience.

Highlights from the PTR and Anticipations for Season Five

Controller support is among the significant updates announced, aiming to expand accessibility and enrich the gaming experience for New World players. This feature has been a frequent request from the community.

The episode also shed light on combat scripting changes, which are intended to enhance game performance and provide the development team with greater flexibility. Despite the complexity of implementing a new scripting language, efforts are being made to address any issues through the PTR, with a focus on resolving major concerns by the launch of Season Five.

Equip Load Changes and Artifact Feedback

Further discussions included equip load balance changes, designed to normalize medium load without clear advantages or disadvantages. This initiative represents an ongoing effort to fine-tune game balance.

Feedback on new Artifacts has led to considerations for adjustments, particularly to the Phoenix and venom Artifacts, to ensure balanced gameplay. The team is actively reviewing community input on these items.

Future Developments and Enhancements

Looking ahead, J.R. and Josh hinted at quality of life improvements, especially regarding mana-based weapons, and the potential for further weapon reworks. These adjustments aim to make mana a more critical factor in gameplay, particularly for early-game experiences with magic weapons.

The transition to a new scripting language is expected to facilitate future content development, including new weapons and gameplay enhancements. This change is part of a broader strategy to improve New World’s gameplay mechanics and content offerings.

Community Engagement and Future Updates

The episode concluded with a call for community feedback on the PTR updates and what players are looking forward to in Season Five. This engagement highlights the importance of player input in the game’s development process.

In the latest “Forged in Aeternum” Community Q&A session for February 2024, hosted by New World’s development team, a series of player concerns and questions were addressed, touching upon issues ranging from gameplay bugs to future updates and content strategies. Scot Lane, a key figure in the team, underscored a commitment to releasing quality updates, albeit acknowledging challenges and setbacks, including the persistence of a bug causing players to be spammed with title achievements upon entering or exiting instances.

The session, marked by an informal and engaging tone, opened with a brief jest about traffic delays affecting team members’ arrivals, before diving into substantive player queries. Among the addressed concerns was the limitation on the number of active artifact quests per character, a restriction explained by data storage capacity issues and the ongoing efforts to optimize and eventually increase this limit.

Addressing a longstanding bug causing annoyance among players, the development team shared their frustration and detailed the complexities in resolving the issue, attributing it to varying player experiences and technical challenges. However, recent breakthroughs offer hope for a forthcoming solution.

The discussion also touched on server merges and the balance between PvP and PvE player engagement, revealing insights into the diverse preferences within the New World community. The team highlighted their data-driven approach to understanding and catering to these different player segments, aiming to balance content to satisfy a wide range of interests.

Moreover, the team hinted at adjustments to game mechanics in response to player feedback, such as the interaction between musket traps and mounts, showcasing a willingness to evolve gameplay based on community input and the internal testing experience.

In a recent update from the official New World website, developers have announced an upcoming overhaul to the game’s combat and animation systems, coinciding with the release of the “Season of the Guardian.” This new development, named “Slayer Script,” is a C++ based scripting language designed to enhance game performance in densely populated player areas and streamline future combat improvements.

Introducing Slayer Script

Slayer Script aims to provide significant performance enhancements and live updates to scripts, enabling dynamic in-game changes. The system is designed to handle a variety of game functions, from event management and animation playbacks to controlling character movements. By utilizing a natively compiled language, the developers intend to pack extensive work into minimal code, optimizing both performance and memory usage.

The transition to Slayer Script was motivated by challenges encountered with the game’s growth, where traditional scripting languages fell short in efficiency due to their interpretive nature and the resultant hardware optimization limitations. The original system faced difficulties with performance, memory, and runtime allocation, leading to the development of Slayer Script as a more efficient alternative. This new system significantly reduces runtime memory and improves code compactness, addressing the scalability and performance issues previously experienced.

With over 400 actions meticulously converted to the new system, the developers’ goals were clear: to achieve maximum efficiency with minimal memory cost, enhance scalability, enable hot-loading for runtime development, and simplify debugging processes. The design of Slayer Script, which centralizes state storage and creates shareable behavior scripts, directly addresses these objectives, facilitating easier maintenance and future expansions.

One of the primary challenges in implementing Slayer Script was maintaining the rapid iteration necessary for game development. The solution allows for the dynamic reloading of modules, enabling developers to see the results of their changes without restarting the game. This feature, however, requires careful management of object references to prevent crashes. Additionally, the team focused on making the complexities of C++ accessible for scripting purposes, aiming to balance power and usability for developers.

In a recent video update from the New World team at Amazon Games, the developers shared a plethora of news and upcoming features for Season Five. Despite an unforeseen delay caused by an “apocalyptic California rainstorm” impacting the team’s logistics, the enthusiasm couldn’t be dampened as they unveiled what’s in store for the players.

Season Five Highlights:

• Roadmap Update Postponed: The team expressed regret over the delay of the roadmap initially promised for May, now rescheduled to June. They assured fans that the wait, albeit a slight setback, is due to new, critical information that necessitates this delay, promising the upcoming roadmap will be worth the wait.
• Advanced Group Finder Launched: Aimed at enhancing the matchmaking experience, especially for players on lower population servers, the Advanced Group Finder feature is expected to be a game-changer, facilitating smoother and more efficient group formations.
• Winter Rune Forge Trial: Season Five introduces a new ten-person trial set in a stunning ancient subterranean architecture coated with ice. This trial promises challenging puzzles, boss encounters, and rewarding artifacts, including the Dark Matter and new Artifact bonuses available twice a week, although players can engage with it as many times as they wish.
• Boss Encounters Reimagined: Players will face revamped versions of the Ophidian Construct and the Ice Guardian, now fully realized as ten-person raid bosses. These encounters have been adjusted to offer a balanced challenge that is engaging yet accessible to pick-up groups.
• New Artifacts and Gameplay Mechanics: Season Five will also introduce a range of new Artifacts, including weapons, armor, and trinkets designed to enhance gameplay. Noteworthy mentions are the Gravity Gauntlets and the Phoenix trinket, alongside a set of boots that reward ambush-style gameplay. Additionally, the Artifact capacity has been increased to ten, allowing players more flexibility in managing their collections.
• Controller Support and Combat System Overhaul: A long-awaited feature, controller support, will finally be introduced, focusing primarily on core gameplay aspects. This initial phase includes aim assist for PvE, a target lock feature, and a virtual cursor for menu navigation. The update also hints at a comprehensive overhaul of the combat system, promising improved performance and debuggability, which could significantly enhance player experience in dense, action-packed scenarios.
• 1 through 60 MSQ Update Finalized: The finalization of the 1 through 60 Main Story Quest (MSQ) update, focusing on Ebonscale Reach and Shattered Mountain, introduces new Soul Trials and cinematics, enriching the narrative experience. Importantly, the update makes the Isabella arc fully playable solo, a significant improvement for solo adventurers.
• Cooking and Tradeskill Revamp: The Cooking Tradeskill is undergoing significant changes to streamline the experience, cutting back on recipes and adjusting experience curves to make leveling more intuitive. This revamp is part of a broader initiative to refine all Tradeskills based on player feedback and usage patterns.
• Quality of Life Improvements: Among the quality of life updates, players can look forward to a more manageable respec cost, now reduced to 50 coins, and the introduction of mounts in Outpost Rush (OPR), promising a fresh dynamic in the popular PvPvE mode.

In the latest episode of “Forged in Aeternum,” a video series dedicated to discussing the popular MMO, New World, key figures from the game’s development team addressed a range of community queries and concerns. Episode 72 featured Scot Lane, the Game Director, David Verfaillie, the Creative Director, and Scott Geiser, the Senior Gameplay Engineer, responding to questions regarding content updates, faction imbalances, and issues related to hacking and bugs.

Delay in New Content until May Explained

The team clarified that while major updates are planned for May, this doesn’t mean a complete halt in new content. They announced a Public Test Realm (PTR) going live, featuring a group finder to enhance the PvE experience, a new ten-person trial, updated main story quests, and several new artifacts. Additionally, the team is planning events for the Year of the Dragon and updates to existing events’ rewards.

Addressing Aim-Hack and Lock-Target-Hack Concerns

The New World team acknowledged the existence of hacking tools and shared their approach towards combating them. They work closely with Easy Anti-Cheat to detect and ban players using such tools, focusing on in-game measures rather than legal action against third-party websites. The team emphasized that detecting and banning hackers is an ongoing effort and that they are committed to maintaining a fair gaming environment.

Faction Imbalance in Open World

The developers acknowledged the issues of faction imbalance during influence races but pointed out that the data does not show extreme discrepancies in faction sizes. They mentioned that while there are mechanisms to balance factions at a macro level, individual event participation is harder to regulate. They encouraged players to find the influence races rewarding and fun, which could help draw more players to participate actively.

Improving Reward Systems for Replayability

Responding to queries about the game’s reward system, the team confirmed their awareness of the need to update rewards for certain content. They are considering enhancing the replayability and attractiveness of the 10-man and 20-man trials by revising the reward systems. The team also expressed enthusiasm for a gear pattern where items have two fixed perks and a random third, which has been well-received in the community.

Bug Fixes and Quality of Life Improvements

The team addressed the ongoing issues with the main story quest bugs and requested specific details from players to aid in resolving these issues more efficiently. They also discussed the challenges in reproducing these bugs due to the various player states and achievements. The team is committed to fixing these as a priority.

Furthermore, they touched upon the quality of life improvements, such as increasing the number of mutators per cycle and addressing the bug where players can’t see their objectives.

In the latest episode of Forged in Aeternum, Patrick Smedley, Lead Seasons Design, Joel Clift, Systems Designer, and Tony Morton, Senior Systems Designer, presented a comprehensive quarterly economy deep dive for New World players. The discussion covered various aspects, including player sentiment, data analysis, and recent changes to the in-game economy.

The episode began with a reflection on the state of the game’s economy after the recent expansion. Initially, the economy was described as a “faucet economy,” where more money was coming in than going out. However, as the episode aired, players experienced a shift to a “sink economy,” where overall spending exceeded earnings.

Joel Clift elaborated on the factors considered in evaluating economic health, mentioning player sentiment from platforms like Reddit and Discord, in-game feedback, and various data analytics. The team emphasized the importance of monitoring faucets and sinks of in-game items, using a Gini index to assess wealth disparity among players.

Tony Morton then presented charts illustrating the evolution of the economy from a faucet to a sink, highlighting spikes in income from Umbral salvage and the impact of the faction shop on the economy’s transition. The team acknowledged the player feedback regarding feeling financially constrained and outlined subsequent changes to address these concerns.

The charts demonstrated the impact of various updates, such as the addition of the Golden Matter Cash and adjustments to the Winter Event, leading to a shift from a sink economy back to a faucet economy. The team emphasized the need for balancing economic changes to maintain a healthy in-game experience.

The discussion further delved into crafting mechanics, the Winter Convergence event, coin generation, and resource availability for tier five and tier 5.2 materials. Joel discussed changes to crafting, including the introduction of Golden Scarabs and adjustments to event mechanics based on player feedback. The team also addressed player concerns about the perception of inadequate coin generation, emphasizing the variety of sources available for players to earn coin.

Lastly, the team addressed challenges related to resource availability, specifically focusing on the overabundance of Mithril and steps taken to correct it. Adjustments to Mithril vein respawn times were mentioned, along with ongoing considerations for changes to the refining process involving Orichalcum.

New World is set to undergo a significant transformation with the introduction of Cross World Expeditions and an upgraded Group Finder. Players will get an early taste of these features in the Public Test Realm (PTR), offering a sneak peek into the upcoming major releases.

The PTR, launching on January 16, acts as a testing ground for upcoming content, giving players a chance to experience new features before their official release. While these previews might come with bugs or other issues, they play a crucial role in identifying and addressing potential problems before the official launch.

The development team encourages players to share their thoughts, bug reports, and suggestions on the New World Discord or through the in-game feedback tool. This collaborative effort aims to refine and enhance the upcoming content based on player feedback.

New World has released Update 2.0.1,and the Summer Medleyfaire event has commenced, bringing new songs, rewards, and activities to summer villages across the continent.

Summer Medleyfaire Returns

This year’s Summer Medleyfaire promises new songs, rewards such as the coveted Guitar Hero title, and the return of seasonal activities like fishing for the highly prized Aeternum Sturgeon. Visiting Summer Villages and engaging with the Medleyfaire Maestro will enable players to bolster their reputation and collect seasonal items that may have been missed during last year’s event. The festival will run from July 19 until August 15. For more details, check out the full announcement on the official website.

Release Notes Unveiled

In addition to the Summer Medleyfaire, Update 2.0.1 also brings numerous bug fixes to enhance the gaming experience:

• Multiple quest-related issues, including those in the “Temple of Sands”, “The Vigil’s Truth”, “A Selfless Nature”, and “The Demon’s Cauldron” quests, have been resolved.
• The Denier in Weaver’s Fen will now count toward any Faction quests that require his defeat.
• Fixes have been made to the Arena walls in the Season 2 Trials, and several issues with the NPC who plays the guitar and the Passion for Prismabloom Journey task have been addressed.
• Changes to the Economy, Progression, and Gear systems include fixing an issue that prevented players from purchasing unearned Gear Set Slot in the store if they didn’t earn the Level 100 Season 1 Pass Reward. Gypsum Casts for Shields are now Epic rarity.
• Combat changes include a fix to the Dodge and Weave passive haste buff and Detonate Heartrune’s explosion VFX.
• Fixes in the UI/UX/Social category include correcting a typo in the quest description for “Heir to the Sands” and preventing “Friendship Accepted” notifications from appearing unnecessarily.
• Game Mode Updates include making the backfill for PvP Arenas more responsive.

New Store Items

The update will introduce new items to the in-game store, including the Rugged Respite – Camp Skin and the Emotive Bundle – Emotes. The Emotive Bundle contains six unique emotes: Pondering, Plotting, Pout, Eyes on You, Cry, and Whistle. Both of these items can be obtained individually or as part of a bundle in exchange for Marks of Fortune.

To get a closer look at the Summer Medleyfaire and all the updates, join the New World Discord and share your favorite images from the event for a chance to be featured on the website. The New World team extends its gratitude for your support and looks forward to seeing you in Aeternum!

The team behind New World has announced a significant update to the game’s player-versus-player (PvP) system, providing a revamped reward track and introducing an intriguing new arena map in the forthcoming Season 2: Blood of the Sands.

The announcement, made on the latest Forged in Aeternum, reveals the introduction of a new PvP reward track designed to maximize player engagement with the upcoming PvP content. The revised track offers exclusive new emotes, weapons, and armor for players participating in their preferred PvP activities.

Notably, the revamped PvP Reward Track will introduce more Named items, Umbral, and Gypsum earlier on in the track, aiming to offer better and more frequent equipment and resources throughout a player’s PvP progression.

In terms of new rewards, players can look forward to acquiring a range of Prestige Jewelry, 600 Gear Score Prestige weapons, and armor. The update includes a variety of Predator weapons, ranging from the ‘Predator’s Brand’ Longsword to the ‘Predator’s Hollow Grip’ Void Gauntlet. Armor categories feature Grand Overseer (light armor), Grand Undertaker (medium armor), and Grand Dominator (heavy armor). A quartet of new emotes, namely Doff Cap, Traffic Guide, Facepalm, and Something Stinks, will offer further opportunities for players to express themselves within the game.

Adding to the excitement, the developers also unveiled a new 3v3 Arenas map, inspired by the theme of ‘Blood and Sand.’ The brainchild of Combat Designer Matthew Nickerson, the new map promises to be a dynamic gladiator-themed arena set within a vast sand pit. The map’s design seeks to provide a more engaging experience for both ranged and melee players, boasting a three-tiered vertical layout that offers various angles and positional advantages.

Nickerson explained, “We wanted to deliver a far more dynamic experience… The idea for a new map originated when we saw the roadmap feedback from PvP players. I’m extremely proud of our hard-working team for making it happen.”

Amazon Games has shared more info about the latest season pass for their popular MMORPG, New World in the latest Forged in Aeternum video series. Dubbed “Blood of the Sands,” the Season 2 pass promises a host of fresh, sand wurm themed content for adventurers to delve into.

The upcoming season pass will offer two reward tracks—free and premium—each with a hundred tiers of unlockable rewards. This includes new features like Transmog Tokens and enticing cosmetics such as the Dry-Blood Armor Set. The pass will also incorporate exciting emotes like the Worm Dance, bringing a lighthearted element to the high-stakes world of Aeternum.

System Designer Joel Clift shared insights into the reward selection process, saying, “We use feedback and data from previous seasons to update our rewards and improve their quality. The Pocket Sand emote is a thematically appropriate and hilarious example.” He added that the team also considered the new content being added to the game. For example, the addition of chests with chitin-themed rewards complements the release of the sand wurm.

For Season 2, the team aims to offer more fixed rewards to eliminate the frustrations brought by randomness. In response to player feedback, furniture chests have been updated so that the free reward track offers static furniture pieces, and the premium track offers schematics for those same pieces.

Game Designer Patrick Smedley expressed excitement for the Worm Dance emote and the Transmog tokens. “I’m a player who enjoys collecting cosmetics, and the Season Pass gives me a wide variety to collect over the course of a season,” he said. In terms of the season’s inspiration, the team envisioned the “fantasy of a desert wanderer,” with skin concepts and emotes reflecting this narrative.

Amazon Games remains committed to incorporating player feedback into the game’s development. Smedley emphasized, “Player feedback on the Season 1 Pass directly impacted the development of the Season 2 Pass, and we learned some great lessons.”

In the latest Forged in Aeternum update the developers of New World are addressing issues with underpowered and underused abilities, tweaking blocking mechanics, and outlining their plans for Season 2.

The changes, a response to recent modifications to armor, Bow, and Fire Staff, also touch on balancing in Outpost Rush and the removal of a lifestyle buff. The team is eager to hear players’ feedback on whether the updates have hit their mark.

Amazon Games has addressed the burning questions of the New World community in their latest Q&A video, “Forged in Aeternum – Community Q&A May 2023″. The Development team tackled various topics including Transmog, the First Light Retraction, new Outpost Rush maps, Trophies, and offered insights into upcoming changes for Season 2, titled “Blood of the Sands”.