Amazon’s MMORPGNew Worldlaunched nearly a month ago to an unexpected level of success. Servers were flooded with gamers eager to level up and grab free territory, and the number of people waiting in queue often surpassed those who’d managed to start playing the game. Some people sawNew World’schaotic launchas a positive sign that the game would thrive once the dust settled, while others viewed it as a forewarning of problems to come.
Unfortunately, it seems that the latter viewpoint is proving to be true. Many of the fundamental issues withNew Worldonly become apparent after players approach endgame content. There are manythings aboutNew Worldthat players are unhappywith, from minor things like item clipping to game-breaking problems like foundational mechanics not functioning properly.
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One of the results of an in-game system that is broken on many levels is deflation, the rare economic phenomenon where the costs for goods and services drop while the value of money increases due to scarcity. This is precisely what is happening inNew World, where gold is leaving circulation more quickly than it can be replenished via loot drops, salvage, or quest rewards. And once players reach endgame, they no longer have quests to rely on for steady income. People are finding that they don’t have enough gold to pay for key elements in the game — such as crafting, homeownership, or item repairs — and have therefore begun to hold onto their money rather than spend it.
This imbalance in the economy has caused gold to become more valuable than the resources that are usually purchased with it, meaningNew Worldplayers have begun to barter for items instead. One example shared on Reddit, perhaps slightly exaggerated, is trading 1000 linen for 600 iron bars and 20 eggs. On other servers, gold is still being used for purchases. But because nobody wants to part with large sums of money, prices fall incredibly low before items will sell, continuing the trend of a shrinking pool of circulating currency.
One reason for this lack of readily available cash is the fact thatNew Worldhas no NPC vendors, meaning that players have no way to easily offload unwanted items in exchange for coin.New World’sentire economy is centered on player trades, salvaging items to recover some gold and materials or, as a last resort, simply discarding junk. Towns have trading posts, where players gather to buy and sell goods with one another.
While someNew Worldplayers have begun to despair at the current state of the in-game economy, others consider it to be normal growing pains for a new MMO or have yet to experience how bad the situation can become because their server is still relatively healthy. Either way,New Worldis still one of the most played games on Steam, and hopefully Amazon Games will successfully iron out the many issues players are uncovering.
