Amazon Games' New World has had a successful launch, the odd hiccup aside, and a few weeks in players are starting to ask the important questions. PC Gamer's own Fraser Brown wakes up every day praying he can get involved in a war, only to be consistently kicked at the last moment (watching the fallout of this is probably the most fun I've had with New World). Sarah James quietly grinds, building her empire and plotting to crush these tiny fools. Over on the hardware desks, Alan Dexter's about 150 hours in and wondering am I really enjoying this? He is. And meanwhile, on the internet...
Welp, at the most basic level of creativity we have players assembling wicker baskets outside their houses to spell naughty words, to the amusement of all and sundry. As one player wryly notes: "must be an Aussie."
More ingenious is some of the stuff going on around houses. Player dwellings have always been one of New World's selling points and, of course, players have a lot of issues with the implementation and want certain aspects of it changed. Some aren't prepared to wait for the developers to act, and so have begun expanding their homes with, for example, a rooftop terrace.
"Yesterday I made my first steps into building my own roof deck as my 3rd floor but it just was not very good looking or easy to access," writes player JoFknLines. "Today I worked on it for some hours and finally got what I wanted from the beginning, an actual useful working 3rd floor. I don't have high house score due to the bed spam but I found it to be the best way to do all of it."
I'm not sure what bed spam is but god love MMOs and the player behaviour they inspire. As JoFknLines explains: "Every extra bed outside basically is a -8 to my decoration score so fucks me up. But I really prefer to have this, I don't care for the score if it takes away my will to be free with what I do in my own house."
Now there's a player that knows their own mind. If you're curious about the height limit on the houses, apparently you can build on the roof but not beyond the chimney's height.
Finally: the classic, the golden oldie, the activity that has been around ever since there's been PvP. No, not scams (though there are plenty of those). Massive ambushes of unsuspecting players.
I'm not sure there's anything particularly insightful to say about gank squads, except that this one did hide very well. Yes it sucks when you're on the end of it, but it's only a game and it is quite funny.
Finally, the bots are already here, and Amazon Games is on the warpath against the gold farmers. In a post on the game's forums, community manager TrevzorFTW wrote:
"Adventurers watch out! We have seen your reports about gold farmers and bots and we take them very seriously. Rest assured that we are always committed to fair gameplay for everyone. As part of this commitment, we are currently taking steps to revoke thousands of keys fraudulently obtained with the intent to disrupt the game. If you believe that New World has been mistakenly removed from your Steam account, which is possible, please contact us."
The PCG New Worlders are on the prowl for more suspicious activity (and wars): watch this space.
