Dev Q&A June 2024

Official News
Utopian Organ
June 13, 2024
1
51

Clarity from the Devs

The New World leadership team fronted up to the camera today and explained what New World: Aeternum means for PC players, both on the release and over the months in between. While the news isn’t great for people who want to play the game right now, it has given us a clear picture of what we can expect. We’ll discuss the most important bits for current players, and have included a text-based FAQ taken directly from the video as well.

No updates before October

The first and most important thing for PC players right now is not to expect anything until October. If you thought Season 4 and 5 were light, we’re not even getting Season 6 until New World: Aeternum launches. The best thing I can say about this is that at least they told us straight up.

What's that about Season 6?

The Seasonal model will remain. We just won’t get Season 6 until October 15.

Roadmap

In the video, Scott talks about the lack of a roadmap and Katy explains we’ll get one for 2025. So the redditor who posted the roadmap below wasn’t far wrong.

I know this is the most asked question and we are really happy we're here to answer it. So between now and October 15th, we're going to release the Summer Medleyfaire. And there might be a couple minor patches coming out around problems.

Scot Lane

I think it’s fair to say the New World: Aeternum graphic they published is the closest thing we will have to a roadmap this year.

Here’s my quick attempt to put it into Roadmap format for you:

Information about the new content

Before we dig into details, it’s important to note that PC players are getting this for FREE! If this was a paid expansion, that would be another story but as an unpaid update, it’s pretty cool.

There wasn’t really much new information about the content that we didn’t see in the original Dev Update. The PVP zone has been confirmed as part of the rework of Cutlass Keys, and it sounds like the new Raid will be in the new Cutlass Keys too, not Elysian Wilds as I had guessed from the graphic style.

Cutlass Keys revamp

As well as the PVP Zone and the new 10-player Raid, Cutlass Keys has been “uplevelled” and we’ll be seeing new quests and enemies. This might be where the Wolfmen come into it. We can assume this means Cutlass will now be an end-game zone for level 65 players, with AGS continuing the trend of reusing old areas rather than expanding the map.

Repeatable Soul Trials

We heard a little bit more about the repeatable Soul Trials. These will be the encounters from the MSQ but at a higher level for end-game players. It sounds like a new daily activity for players to do solo while waiting for scheduled activities like Invasions or Wars to start or for friends to finish expeditions or OPR.

You can do three a day, you get cool rewards. You get to see these cool fights again. Yeah, they're up leveled so that they are true end game.

Scot Lane

Gear Score Increase to 725

No more actual information about the details of how this will work but a “gear score increase” was clearly stated by Dave in the video and on the roadmap graphic above. Players would really like some more information on how this is going to be implemented. Last time there was a gear score increase, it coincided with a major overhaul of the gear system, from upgrading to crafting to perks themselves. All we know about this one is that the new Raid will drop 725 gear. Maybe the Mystic Doubloon shop will too, as it is purported to have “some of the best gear in the game”. And maybe the “cool rewards” from the Repeatable Soul Trials might be 725 GS.

Our questions are: what about crafting? mutations? elite zones? The Dev Update video said that you could get up to 700GS gear from mutations, not 725GS. If that’s the case, instead of getting an expansion of the content we can do at end game, New World: Aeternum will restrict end-game players to fewer activities than before, to get the top gear score items. Huge mistake, if so.

Cross-world Arenas

We have confirmation that Arenas will be cross-world and include matchmaking, however that’s going to work. If it’s anything like Cross-world Group Finder with matchmaking, all it means is slower queues, at least for those of us in AP Southeast. Hopefully the console servers bring in the population we need for these systems to work properly.

Focus on re-telling the story, again

I think I can speak for the majority of PC players, that while we were pleased the MSQ had been reworked, we were relieved that it was finally finished this year so that resources could move onto other things. Turns out that’s not the case. The storyline will receive another facelift by October, with new cinematics, new NPC characters. That’s a lot of work on one area, I hope it’s worth it.

Clearing up misconceptions / FAQ

The main purpose of this video looks to be to clear up some misconceptions caused by the announcement of the release. I’m going to include these below in FAQ format for easy reference.

As an existing new world player, what is my experience on October 15th?

So if you are a current player, when this hits, you’ll get all the new content if you have the Rise of the Angry Earth DLC.
If you have the base game, you will get some of what we’ve done because there are quite a few quality of life improvements that we’ve included.
So yeah. So your experience will be uninterrupted, your progression continues, and you continue your time in Aeternum from New World.
Hopefully you’ll have a lot more players to play within the world as well.
That’s the goal.

So why console?

Well, we’ve wanted to bring New World to console for a long time.
I mean, if you’ve ever played it on a controller or on your couch, it just feels great.
So I think it’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I think we feel ready now.
And I think it’s, like you said, it’s going to bring a lot of new players to the game which will be exciting.

Why is New World: Aeternum called an ARPG and not an MMORPG?

Well you can still play Aeternum the way you’ve always played it, but because of all of the changes we’ve done to the storytelling, the way we tell the story, because of the way our camera and combat navigation work through the world, we feel like, you know, we’re across so many genres, but this pushes us solidly into the ARPG, which is a little more well known on console.

Is New World: Aeternum a separate game?

No, it is the continuation of New World.

Is New World closing down and launching as single player?

No, New World is not closing down.

Will we lose our characters and progress?

No.
Again.
No.

What will current players get between now and October?

Right now our focus is on an awesome, clean release on October 15th.
In the interim, we are still going to have a Summer Medleyfaire.
But beyond that, there’s not really going to be anything.
Our focus, on top of all the features we talked about, we’re trying to fix as many bugs as we can, and we want this to be just a super polished experience.
We’re very, very excited for that launch date, and we want to do it right at high quality.

Are seasons going away? When is the next season coming?

No, seasons are not going away.
We’re committed to the seasonal model and bringing players a regular cadence of content.
The next season is with the New World: Aeternum launch on October 15th.

How does crossplay work?

If you’re on PC, it couldn’t be easier.

You just play the game, and in the world you’ll be joined with new friends from PS5 and Xbox.
That happens in the open world.
Another important thing to mention is all this cross-world and matchmaking, will now be joined with a larger play pool.
So they get to not only be in the open world with you, but will join all the queues in matchmaking.

Will console players join the existing PC servers?

Yeah, so console players will have the ability to join the existing worlds that we see on PC today.
The only things that are going to happen, and some folks should be used to this because it’s the way that we did the Fresh Start Worlds for Brimstone Sands, is that if you have a legacy character, it cannot move to the new worlds that we’re creating at launch.
So, that’s something where if your console friends want to play with you on your current server, they’re able to do that.
But if you want to play with them on the Fresh Start Worlds, you do have to create a new character, which I think is a lot of fun because we revamped and changed a lot in the new starting experience.
So I think it’s worth it to log in with a new character that day.

Will PC players who only have the base game and not Rise of the Angry Earth expansion still be able to play after October?

Absolutely.

Will the release of New World: Aeternum change the minimum and recommended specs of the game?

No, between now and, the launch of New World: Aeternum and after that, we have no plans to adjust those min and rec specs.
And it might even play better on the minimum rec specs now.

Will New World: Aeternum bring DirectX 12 to the game?

Yes.
We’re very excited to bring DirectX 12 with all the work we’ve been doing on console, it now can come to PC and bring enhanced rendering for everyone.

Will the non-Aeternum version of the game continue to receive new content?

Yeah. So I mean, first off, there is going to be no non-Aeternum version of the game. On October 15th, we’re all playing Aeternum. I think what we’re talking about is the base game.
And so for the base game, you’ll continue receiving updates.
You’ll get access to our quality of life improvements, seasonal events, things like that.
I will say that in order to like, really experience the best version of this game, like the ultimate version of this game, that’s what you get with the Rise of the Angry Earth DLC as part of Aeternum.

If I don't have the Rise the Angry Earth expansion, will I still get the preorder bonus?

So this is a pretty interesting one because, when you log in, you get an entitlement to that preorder bonus to the Azoth Stalker.
But if you don’t have Rise of the Angry Earth, you can’t access mounts, which is what that goes through.
So if you do purchase the Rise of the Angry Earth DLC after you’ve logged in after a while you will get that preorder bonus because it’s attached to your account.

Will New World: Aeternum continue to receive regular updates after its release on October 15th?

It sure will.
We’re going to get back onto our regular seasonal cadence.
And, you know, we’re always working toward our next piece of large content, so it’s all in the works.

Will New World: Aeternum support cross-progression between PC and consoles?

No, we don’t support, cross-progression between the consoles and PC.
We only support cross-play.

So, those are the questions. I skipped the questions about the roadmap and about what PC players can expect on October 15th, since these were covered in the first part of the article. While none of this was different to my interpretation of the initial video, a few things have been clarified and I hope this helps everyone understand what is happening.

I can’t deny it’s disappointing to have been told since last year to wait until May, then June, and now October. I think everyone agrees this could have been communicated better, and I guess we’ll never know whether it was because of uncertainty about development timelines or a marketing strategy.

I’m excited about October but very much in limbo about the time between now and then. I imagine most PC players will be looking at other games to play while they wait, but I don’t play any other games. Maybe it will give me a chance to get some real world work done!

From the source:

You can visit a direct link here, or watch the video below:

With the announcement of New World: Aeternum, Scot Lane (Game Director), Katy Kaszynski (Live Lead / Senior Producer) and David Verfaillie (Creative Director) tackle your biggest questions.