New Worldwas released on a dizzying high, breaking records and prompting Jeff Bezo to openly gloat. Those familiar with the gaming world knew better, and it only took a few weeks for the honeymoon to end. The game was plagued with issues that ranged from simple game mechanics to crafting to fake and duped currency at the Trading Post. Even the in-game chat had serious flaws that bad-faith players could exploit and abuse.
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It’s been about a year now since the initial 2021 release, and despite the fall from MMORPG grace, theNew Worldhas gone through some improvements since the launch. The game fills a niche, with few other MMOs using the same type of Age of Exploration aesthetic and lacking any binding class or profession choices at character creation.
7New Map And Quest Indicators
This is just one of many details in the UI that have been replaced with similar but better designs.Quest and location indicators are biggerand now match the old-timey aesthetic of the game, which that applies to both the map and the compass indicators players see while out exploring.
Other improvements in this same vein included fixes to the timer for players to transfer between regions, bigger storage space and no charge between item transfers, and nerfing certain basic challenges in each area’s starting zone.
6The Void Gauntlet
The best improvement is always more items, and the Life Staff looked so lonely, being the only weapon that scaled with Focus. Enter the Void Gaunlet, which Scales with both Focus and Intelligence, was introduced with theEnter The Void Patchthat was added on November 18th, 2021.
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Not only did it give the Focus Attribute something else to do, but it also allowed players to wield the deadly Void Damage, a power that’s unique to Aeternum. It’s equipped with self-healing abilities and is extra powerful against Ancients, one of the island’s most troublesome enemies.
5Smoother Gameplay
One of the major and most glaring complaints early afterNew World’s release was related to hardware problems. Games didn’t load promptly or sometimes not at all, fast travel frequently caused the system to crash, and characters would stutter or de-sync while attacking. These are related to similar problems on the software side, in which players often found themselves stuck in certain animations or that their cooldown wasn’t working.
It took a few months, with many of these problems still an issue months later, but the patch introduced in March of 2022 made some changes to AI interactions, and combat has improved this considerably.
4The Blunderbuss
A weapon that scales with Strength and Intelligence, the blunderbuss does ranged damage, although it’s more effective at medium or short distances. It wasn’t in the armory when the game was released but was a part of theHeart of Madnesspatch which also added more lore and random wilderness experiences.
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The blunderbuss fires the equivalent of six musket shots in a single blast, which is a nice bit of power, but the downside is that it doesn’t have a special attack like other weapons do.
3Talent Mastery Tree Changes
Plenty of the Mastery Trees that players can use to refine their skills have gone through some tweaks and changes. Certain party roles and group or solo abilities have a more focused progressiondepending on how the talents are organized, so it’s not as complex to choose a progression or build and go with it.
The update in May 2022 also changed some of the visuals in the trees to make them easier to read, specifically which abilities the player needed to allocate 10 points to acquire or level up.
2More Lore
The lore ofNew Worldgot off to a great start, but it seemed to stall after launch with nowhere to go. The patches and fixes that followed immediately after were more focused on solving more serious and immediate problems the game was having with basic hardware and software, so it’s not a surprise that the history and backstory of Aeternum had to go on the back burner.
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The Heart of Madness update that was released in March of 2022 was the first time a patch was just as concerned with fixing certain technical issues as it was with adding more NPCs, characters, and general padding for the main storyline. The main additionsinvolved the character Isabella, and players with sharp eyes who like exploring have found various journals throughout Aeternum about her ill-fated quest. Consumed by the dark powers of the island, she now roams the Tempest Heart Expedition, and defeating her is one of the highest-level quests in the game.
1Bug Fixes…A LOT of Bug Fixes
Aside from the problems with combat timing, software crashes, and hardware incompatibility,New Worldquickly gained a bad reputation for exploitation when it came to the economy, crafting, PvP, and even the in-game chat functions.
All of the issues that allowed players to cheat at PvP, duplicate gold, or use graphics of sausages to slow or even shut down Trade Chat have been fixed. It was noted that Amazon seemed to take its sweet time with a lot of these kinds of problems, only taking them into serious consideration when server populations started to drop in because of the company’s slow response.
