GENERAL NEW WORLD AND ALPHA
Q: Is the current focus on fixes and tuning?
A: Over time we plan to add more land, combat variation (weapon types), more craftable gear sets and more. Throughout Alpha, bug fixes and tuning are our priority.
Q: Is there a plan for us to be able to invite friends?
A: At this time, we do not have plans for an alpha tester referral program.
Q: Is there another wipe planned and to the best of your ability, can you tell us when it will be?
A: We are considering another wipe in January. However, as in any Alpha, we may make discoveries that require us to wipe sooner in order to test balancing or feature revisions.
Q: Will you be asking for more focused testing during the Alpha?
A: We learn about player behaviors, habits, and trends by allowing playtesters to play naturally. As we continue our New World Alpha test, there may be times where we might ask to stress specific features with focused testing events, such as October’s Battle of the Devs, which was intended to test large-scale combat.
Q: How many of the devs actively play the game?
A: All of us, but primarily in the production (internal only) environment. Over 50 of us actively play in the Alpha regularly.
Q: With the latest release only allowing one character per account, what plans do you have to counteract players that have multiple accounts?
A: We think our initial change has the potential to solve the exploit of multiple characters per server. We will watch and listen to see if alternate accounts become a significant problem or have a negative impact on the game for others.
Q: Will more playtesters be joining the New World Alpha this month?
A: Yes! We have been consistently adding small batches of Alpha Testers as needed, actively monitoring data and population. We’ll continue to add more Alpha Testers as needed to help us improve New World.
Q: Who is the primary target audience for this game?
A: We’re making New World for Sandbox MMO fans, and hope to appeal more broadly to MMORPG and Survival gamers as well.
Q: Is there a status update on a solution for us to upload video to the forums?
A: We take security very seriously, and there are layers of complexity when receiving uploaded files from outside sources. It introduces a lot of security risk, and we are working on a solution which will enable testers to upload videos, but do not have one at this time.
Q: Am I wasting my time by providing detailed feedback? Or should I expect that at least one person on the dev team will think it worth reading?
A: We can promise 100% that we take feedback very seriously. We obviously can’t guarantee that we will act on every given piece of feedback, even feedback we love and agree with. Development costs time and resources, and we continually analyze priorities.
Q: How set in stone is each mechanic so far, and will there be major revamps to specific systems to test how they do?
A: Nothing is set in stone. We are continually reviewing mechanics and data of player habits to determine where to take action.
Q: What is the goal and vision you are trying to achieve for New World this year?
A: For the rest of the year, our focus is to enhance our War Declaration System. We may sneak in a new weapon too!
Q: What do creators get to play when you give them a behind the curtain look? Same as us or a more polished version?
A: Currently, the team is 2-4 weeks ahead of the build our Alpha playtesters are playing. It’s usually a lot less polished version and less bug-proof. When folks visit the studio, they are generally playing on the internal Game Team build.
Q: If you had to list the top five things that New World has to offer that no other game will, what would they be?
A:
- Combination of physical based combat and the number of players in a single world
- Size of the world
- Density (both interact-able objects and players)
- Large-scale battles
- Can anyone name another game with turkeys, pigs, elk, bison, boars, and bears?
Q: How do you plan to accommodate an entire MMO’s worth of people in a single, shared, company and land claim-driven world?
A: We will have enough servers up to accommodate our player base.
Q: What will you do about players that prefer solo play?
A: We’re already doing a lot for solo players. Outposts, the progression system, camping, and tracking were specifically designed for solo play. We are looking at more ways to support solo play in the future.
ANIMATION & ART
Q: What modeling tools does your team use through the entire process from initial modeling, texturing, UV mapping, animating, etc?
A: The Art team is using Maya and ZBrush for modeling. Substance Designer&Painter and Photoshop are used for textures and materials. We do have some artists working with 3D Studio MAX for some environment work. The Animation team works with Maya.
Q: How many polys does a typical character in the game have?
A: Our different characters range from 15K to 30K polys.
FUTURE CONTENT & PLANS
Q: Are re-spawn cooldowns still a feature planned for the game?
A: Respawn cooldowns are already a thing. Aside from Outposts, every respawn point has a cooldown on it.
Q: Is new content being built up so you can throw out a bunch at once, or would we see a trickle as we go forward?
A: For the short to mid-term, we still want to focus on improving quality by fixing bugs, improving performance, and general game tuning.
Q: Would it be possible to give us a rough roadmap on the direction you plan on taking the game?
A: Short to mid-term focus is War Declaration Mechanic, adding an FTUE (first-time user experience/tutorial) and more directed gameplay (this will not be quest givers or theme park mechanics).
Q: Can you give us a roadmap or idea on how you see character development in the future?
A: We plan to evolve our progression system, combat system, and will add more content to craft.
Q: How will you ensure that the final product offers a wide range of viable specs?
A: Assuming that «viable specs» means different viable playstyles or character builds, as we introduce more weapon types we expect to see new character builds emerge.
Q: When are you going to open an EU server?
A: Soon.
Q: Is this decision to limit players to 1 character per server a locked one or might this change in the future?
A: Nothing is ever locked.
WORLD EXPERIENCE
Q: Can we expect to see any PvE content such as dungeons, world bosses or triggered world events?
A: We’d love to, and that may happen in the distant future, but not soon.
Q: Do you see the game implementing more cities, towns, NPCs, and quests to fit the mold of other recent MMOs?
A: As the world grows, we will implement more large-scale AI areas like the Corrupted Capitol. Player cities will have to be built by players.
Q: Will you have wide open lawless areas where everyone is red upon entering but are filled with high-end mobs for those willing to risk everything?
A: This is something we’ve talked about internally a lot, we don’t have plans at this time.
Q: Will you add a lawless continent?
A: With regards to Crime Tracking, we have considered adding special areas with different rules, but we are still evaluating what that would mean for the game.
Q: Are there plans to add barracks to supply guards for your player built cities?
A: Not at this time.
Q: Plans with claims & outposts (sanctuary zones), is this their final form?
A: Nope.
COMBAT
Q: How close would you say the present combat is to your vision of it? What would be the most significant difference between then and now?
A: We feel pretty good about combat, but there’s more we want to add. Overall we like the deadliness and deliberateness of combat and feel it’s achieving our goal of skill based combat. The most significant gaps are that we need more weapon types, need to dive into magic, and add things like offhand, stealth, backstab, etc.
Q: What do they think about having an actual (but limited) action bar with abilities that might be associated with character progression and equipment?
A: We don’t think action bars would work well in a physical based combat game. They work great in tab-target games whereas you are managing CD’s. But we may add more attacks to the weapons in the future.
Q: What’s the developers’ opinions on the current state of TTK (time to kill) when it comes to ranged / melee. What is the ultimate goal when it comes to the perfect TTK?
A: We think TTK took a step in the right direction with the November release. It was too quick and we made some changes to lengthen it. Depending on weapon and attack type, we want equal gear hits to kill to be in the 4-6 range.
Q: What are the odds «lock on» is removed?
A: There are no immediate plans to remove lock on. Some people like to play with it and we don’t feel it provides an advantage over people who don’t use it. But we’re interested to hear why you would want to remove it.
Q: Will dual wielding be added to the game as a possible weapon choice?
A: We’ve discussed this a lot and have designs for it. We want to get this implemented in 2019. (Don’t take this as a commitment!)
Q: Would it be possible to implement a Dueling System?
A: We watch the forums a lot, and we understand this is an important topic among our playtesters. It would be possible, and we think this would be hugely valuable and weighing it against other features as we prioritize our backlog.
Q: Is combat as it is now a placeholder? Will there be other combo moves besides Q, F, Run, attack and left click? Is chain attack damage in the works that can benefit stamina builds over heavy armor builds?
A: The current combat is starting to express our visions of a weighted, physical-based combat, that feels deliberate and deadly. As mentioned in a previous answer, there is still a lot we want to add. More weapons, magic, offhand, crits, stealth, etc. We may add more attacks to weapons in the future, but don’t see an immediate need to do.
Q: What kind of alternative attacks can we expect for magic gloves? Right now Healing only has one; will it get more?
A: We don’t want to give away all our secrets, but we have four schools of magic planned. The current healing spell is just one spell in one of the schools. So there will be a lot more spells coming when we dig into magic.
Q: Will you re-balance ranged weapons?
A: We are always tuning the game. Many stats will be living numbers as we make changes, introduce new content or functionality, and play style evolves.
Q: What kind of weapons to be implemented in the future? Would you guys be willing to give a sneak peek?
A: Some people either are ready supporters of a new weapon type, some are not. Did we get our point across?
PLAYER EXPERIENCE
Q: What is the long-term vision for New World and will be it be geared more towards PVE or PVP?
A: New World is and will be a PvP game. We will continue to support and build systems for PvE because PvE fuels PvP. More importantly, we know a lot of gamers love it. Please check out our State of the Game announcement for a deeper dive on this subject specifically.
https://alphaforum.newworld.com/forums/new-world-gazette/news-announcements/164100-new-world-state-of-the-game 
Q: At what point can we expect magic to be added to the game and how do you envision it functioning?
A: We plan to invest more time into magic in 2019. It will work similar to the healing gauntlet.
Q: Will we see any casual PVP objectives?
A: Eventually.
Q: The reset might allow players to «steal» other players’ character names, letting a lot of confusion take hold. How will you handle this?
A: We are in Alpha and it is a possibility. That said, with the no alts change, they better really want that name.
Q: Some players might consider creating and deleting their character to play spy. Will this be encouraged or prevented with some timer and limit?
A: Weren’t not going to encourage it, but don’t plan to police it. These are problems that can be solved on a Company level very easily.
Q: When do you think you will introduce casting/magic ability’s to the alpha?
A: We think 2019.
Q: Would it be possible to re-implement collision detection with allies?
A: It would be possible. We are looking at how people are responding to the change. It did solve a pretty big exploit and we understand there may be other ways to address it.
Q: How do you plan to discourage players from running around naked with just a high-end weapon?
A: Our Crime and Punishment system is built to deter this behavior.
Q: Will there be a lot of magical casting abilities in this game, including non-offensive/defensive ones?
A: There are a lot more spells coming. Each school will have multiple spells. We are planning to do four schools of magic eventually. They will likely be rolled out over time. This will create a wide variety of spell types that should appease all sorts of magicians out there.
COMPANIES, WAR & CRIMINAL INTENT
Q: When we can expect functioning claim siege system?
A: We recently updated our War Declaration system to include a Conquest Phase, which allows companies to circumvent protection for a limited time. We are committed to future changes to refine the system.
Q: Why do you dissuade player conflict with a criminal system?
A: From our perspective, we are not dissuading player conflict, we are directing it. In New World, you are free to kill anyone you please whenever you please, but part of that decision involves taking the consequences into account. If you want to be free of those consequences, go to war. The incoming changes to war, along with other features coming a little further out will serve to help people be more directly involved in the world’s conflicts. We can’t be more specific than that at this time.
Q: Will Criminal Intent remain the same & continued to be discouraged?
A: The plan is to discourage out of war PvP. The system will undoubtedly change as we continue, but overall it isn’t fun getting repeatedly ganked and losing your stuff. That said, it is a PvP game, and you guys are better than any AI we build.
Q: What is your stance on Company hopping?
A: We plan to add countermeasures. Like cooldown timers on specific events such as leaving/joining Companies, as well as better access to potential recruits’ history of Company membership.
Q: What are your plans to improve the War Declaration System?
A: We’ve made significant changes in our November Release and expect to make more in the upcoming releases. For more details on our plans see our most recent dev blog here: https://alphaforum.newworld.com/forums/new-world-gazette/developer-blogs/164241-changes-to-war-declaration-for-update-0-8-0-0
Q: With character slots reduced to 1, will you reconsider reinstating the offline criminal timer? How will you combat going AFK to abuse this?
A: We will be paying attention to how this affects gameplay. If we feel it is a problem, we will consider everything including shortening the penalty time. We are looking into AFK timeout.
Q: Do you plan on adding any in-game system for Company alliances?
A: It’s very very high on the backlog, yes!
Q: Is it possible to let Governors customize as many Ranks as they want and to edit those Permissions based on their whim?
A: This is also high on the backlog, but not as high as Alliances.
CRAFTING, TRADE SKILLS & CHARACTER PROGRESSION
Q: Are there any discussion about reverting the repair cost change or changes to item durability?
A: The repair cost change was a fix to a bug, so the system is working as intended. We have a change coming in a future release that will completely change the way repairing works.
Q: Are there plans to make the harvesting and crafting system more complex?
A: We feel the mechanics of harvesting resources and crafting items are in the right place, so don’t expect any significant changes at this time.
Q: Will characters still have the ability at level 80 to reset their skill points and attributes? If so, do you see the economy suffering while players horde potions like Renewing Draught and Lethean Draught?
A: There will be no unique way for a high-level player to reset their points that is different than anyone else. With regards to the economy of the Renewing and Lethean Draughts, we’re still tuning their drop rates.
Q: Is the current «skill point» system set in stone or is it a placeholder?
A: We do not consider any feature set in stone. As far as «skill point,» we like it, and it looks like players like it. We believe it needs to evolve into something bigger and are having high-level discussions, but nothing concrete.
Q: Do you plan to keep Powder Kegs in the game, even though it has game-breaking behavior right now?
A: Powder Kegs are a staple of siege warfare. That said, we have been, and continue to be proactive about addressing the exploits and edge cases that our playtesters have surfaced.
Q: What do you plan to do with building mechanics outside of the protection circle?
A: We’re in the process of tuning structure placement to make it a bit more friendly against uneven terrain. The last release made structures «stomp» out gatherables if they have been gathered. For instance, you can’t place a cabin on a tree, but if you chop it down, you can place it on the stump.
Q: How likely are we to get an armor dying system?
A: Very!
TRADING POST
Q: Why can’t potions, weapons, and armor of rarity be sold at the trading post? Is there an overarching set of guidelines on how you want (or don’t want) it to function?
A: We’re aiming to update the Trading Post to support buying/selling everything (almost everything) in the first half of 2019.
SOCIAL & UI
Q: Why were coordinates removed from the compass?
A: Right now we have a great luxury of trying things out and getting tons of great feedback from you guys. This was something we tried with the overall goal of simplifying as much onscreen UI as possible. We debated it internally, as we know compass degrees is vital in group-based shooters. For instance, there is some long-distance spotting in our game. We would love to talk more about it in a thread.
