It's been almost two months since the launch of Amazon Game Studios' New World, which was highly anticipated as a new MMO on the market. New World's launch was huge, with concurrent player numbers on Steam peaking at over 700,000 on launch day and then at over 913,000 within a few days. However, New World quickly ran into issues that destabilized the community and tipped its balance over to negativity, all while the game's economy was inflated by Gold dupers who ran rampant for weeks before being banned.
Amazon reacted to the issues by upping its communication with the community about what was in the works and future plans. Many of those who were found guilty of cheating or exploiting in New World were eventually banned, but glitches were still a problem, to the point that now players found another exploit to dupe items, Gold, and trophies. This led to a handful of players to become richer than most of the population of New World, and Amazon had to disable all forms of wealth transfers, including trading posts, in order to tackle the issue.
The Impact of New World's Economy Shutting Down
Whenever the whole economy of New World is halted, the game suffers as a result for a plethora of reasons. For starters, when the economy is temporarily turned off in order to identify and rectify exploits, the game remains online, and so do all of its systems that are tied with Gold transfers and taxation. Additionally, there is no pause on Invasions or War timers, which makes it hard to engage in either mode because players might need to upgrade their gear or purchase potions and repair kits from the trading posts, but can't.
As a result, Invasions are hardly fought off, which in-turn means many settlements end up having their crafting stations downgraded, with no way to stop it or improve them again due to wealth transfers being blocked. This also leads to New World crafters and gatherers paying a hefty price for someone else's exploits, as they are hindered in terms of crafting when the stations are downgraded, and in terms of gathering because they can't sell what they collect or make. The consequence is that some players are stuck with full storage and inventories, meaning they can't really play the game until wealth transfer is enabled again - which usually takes a few days and some long-term maintenance.
Those players whose experience is ruined because of exploiters tend to become unhappy, which sees New World's already dwindling population decrease more over time. It also makes some players quick to resentment against cheaters, filling platforms like Reddit with posts about why Amazon should permanently ban New World offenders right away. This also calls for comments from players who believe that Amazon should implement a way to track individual items being traded, that way rectifying trades and removing duped items and Gold would be easier.
Overall, the main problem is that disabling all forms of trades is not the solution to this problem; instead it creates another one that may drive away those players who are genuinely enjoying the game. There may be no easy way to tackle exploits that damage the economy of MMOs, but New World might not survive another wealth transfer shutdown, as players may easily lose faith in the game.
New World is available now on PC.