With the launch of New World‘s Aeternum update fast approaching, Amazon Games agreed to chat with us about what to expect – and how the team is shaping its public perception. Game Director Scot Lane and Creative Director David Verfaillie kindly addressed our concerns on everything from the content coming with Aeternum and the new gear score cap to how they plan on mending fences with jilted PC players. Read on for the whole interview!
MassivelyOP: As recently as the press events around Rise of the Angry Earth, I heard the developers say that a console release for New World was not planned. What made you decide that now was the time to move to consoles?
Amazon’s Scot Lane and David Verfaillie: In the early stages of New World’s development, its identity, first as a survival crafting game and then as an open world MMO, made it particularly well-suited for PC. Developing and running a live game the size and scope of New World was already a massive undertaking for what was at the time a newly formed team, so we decided to focus on creating and releasing a great game on one platform first. However, we always knew that our action-combat and the way our play navigates would translate well to a gamepad. Over time as New World evolved and we’ve added more content, we became excited to welcome more players to Aeternum via expanding to consoles.
Tell us more about the revamp of Cutlass Keys. How does the new PvP area work, and how much PvE content is still in the zone?
The PvP zone is a large area in the southwest of Cutlass Keys. We expanded the zone quite a bit to ensure the PvP area was big enough, while still having good real estate for PvE. When players cross the boundary of the Cursed Mists they are automatically flagged for PvP. The Cursed Mists is a Free For All PvP zone, which means groups and factions don’t matter, every person for themselves. The risk is high, but the rewards in the FFA PvP area are great – high density of gatherables and lots of cursed doubloons (a currency used to get new end-game gear at the Well of Fortune). But players must escape the zone alive to reap the rewards.
With the gear score cap increasing to 725, will there be a way to upgrade our current gear to the new cap?
Artifacts will be upgradable, but standard named or previously crafted gear will not be upgradable. Players will be able to attain max gear score from the new raid (The Hive of Gorgons), the Well of Fortune in Cutlass Keys, and from participating in instanced PvP modes (weekly cache).
Can you clarify how the new mob stagger system works? Is it actually a stagger in the mechanical sense (interrupting attacks and such) or is it purely a cosmetic change?
Yes, it’s an actual stagger and it feels great when fighting mobs in the open world – it makes standard combat feel so much more impactful. The mechanics behind it are when you hit an enemy with any light or heavy attack (or any other ability), it will now stagger them. However, the stagger caused by those attacks is limited by a cooldown that is triggered after a certain number of staggers (tuned per weapon and attack). For melee attacks, the cooldown generally takes 2-3 staggers to trigger and resets after 2 seconds of the enemy not being hit. For ranged attacks, the cooldown triggers after a single stagger but resets after 2 seconds, regardless of additional hits. Abilities which are described as causing a stagger will always cause a stagger regardless of the state of the cooldown.
Now that we have swimming, are there any plans for some aquatic content? Underwater treasures, or perhaps sailing?
Nothing planned at the moment.
By far the most common reason I see lapsed players give for not returning to the game is that mounts require a paid DLC. With Rise of the Angry Earth being included in the initial purchase for console players, will it also be granted to existing PC accounts who don’t already have it, or will mounts be made easier to access some other way?
Players who already purchased New World on PC can play the base game, however they will have to purchase the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion in order to access everything Aeternum has to offer, including mounts. There is so much content for players to enjoy in the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion – and that is just the start of what they can look forward to with the additional content they’ll receive on Oct. 15 with the release of New World: Aeternum, so we hope they think it’s worth it.
Since the Slayer Script update, some players, including myself, have had an issue where our character has the wrong face. It’s been discussed on social media, and personally I’ve reported it with the in-game tool. When will this bug be fixed?
With the release of New World: Aeternum all player faces will be updated and improved. During this update we strived to maintain the original intent of the old faces. In season 5 some faces that were still in progress were released early. Those will see further updates with the Aeternum release.
With more fresh start servers on the way, how do you plan to ensure legacy servers maintain a healthy population?
New players will be able to join legacy servers if they want to play with friends. We also believe Aeternum is a great time to come back to New World, so we hope some past players on legacy servers will come back. And perhaps the best benefit to legacy servers will be the influx of players in the matchmaking pool, which should make expeditions, OPR, and arenas pop much quicker.
Also on the subject of starting fresh, are there any plans to give players an additional character slot with the release of Aeternum?
Yes! With the release of Aeternum, we will be increasing the maximum character slots to 4.
A lot of PC players have felt abandoned due to the lack of content and support leading up to Aeternum‘s release. How do you plan to regain their trust going forward?
First, we want to thank our PC community for their help, engagement, and passion for New World. As we considered the future of New World and our goals related to its longevity and health, we decided it would be best to slow down the content for a short period of time in order to improve the game’s foundation and service as well as bring in many new players for the current base to engage with. Moving forward, our goal is to be communicative and as transparent as we can be with our players, and to listen to their feedback.
Thank you to Scot Lane and Dave Verfaillie for taking the time to respond to our questions!
New World’s Aeternum is a land of many secrets. In MassivelyOP’s Vitae Aeternum, our writers delve those secrets to provide you with in-depth coverage of all things New World through launch and beyond.
