To say that New World, Amazon's flagship MMO, has had a tumultous start would be an understatement. Even though it has seen a very successful launch, drawing over 900,000 concurrent players on Steam, gamebreaking issues and glitches have plagued the game ever since – and this time, an exploit to the game's coin transfer system has forced Amazon to close New World's trading posts, as well as the coin transfer system itself, for the third time.
The exploit allowed players to creatively manipulate game mechanics for the purpose of duplicating (or duping) hard-to-craft items to sell on the game's trading post for exorbitant prices, and in this case in specific, dupers have used it to duplicate trophies.
In Aeternum, the fictional colonial-era setting of New World, trophies are furnishing items tied to the game's housing system that provide the player with powerful passive bonuses that remain active in every zone of the game. Players can have up to five different trophies displayed in each of their houses and they are generally considered to be an expensive and valuable boon to have.
The New World players who discovered the exploit claim that they initially shared it with Amazon's developer team, but were forced to go public after their previous attempts to do so fell on deaf ears. Unsurprisingly, this sparked an uproar among the game's passionate fanbase on the official forums of the game and the developers took swift action by temporarily closing down New World's entire economy until the problem was fixed.
In the wake of the decision to disable New World's trading post system, the playerbase has either lamented the volatile state of the game or condemned Amazon Game Studios' leniency towards the burgeoning duping community in New World. In previous incidents of this nature, Amazon's punishment doled out to the players responsible amounted to little more than a 24-hour ban. Considering how swiftly unchecked duping can throw an MMO's economy into disarray, it is not an unreasonable stance to hope that the developers take a firmer stance on punishing dupers – such as permanently baning them from the game, or at the very least, taking away their ill-gotten items.
To Amazon Game Studios' credit, they have had open and frequent communication with New World's playerbase and it's become apparent that they share a passion and a desire to help New World reach its true potential.
Fans of the game seem united in the idea that New World has the foundation to be an engaging MMO, and indeed, popular Twitch streamers such as Asmongold share this view, but until such a time comes when Amazon Game Studios fixes major bugs such as these, the players' time in Aeternum will regrettably remain disrupted by them.
New World is available now on PC.