It is one of the most common things in the gaming industry: players wish for certain content for their favorite game, but it just doesn’t come. In a video, three developers from New World discuss why developing some content is not that easy.
In a new video released on the official YouTube channel of New World, three developers from Amazon Games talk about their work on the MMORPG. They explain why the implementation of new features and the general development of an MMORPG is difficult and address the factor of time.
Who speaks in the video?
- The host of the discussion is New World Game Director Scot Lane.
- Alongside him are Senior Gameplay Engineer Scott Geiser
- and Creative Director Dave Verfaillie.
Why not 20,000 players per server?
Right at the beginning of the conversation, Lane poses the question of why they don’t allow 20,000 to play on each server.
Geiser then states that it is sometimes “a technical challenge” and sometimes also “a gameplay issue.” The demands that would come with such a change could cause lags.
Subsequently, Verfaillie points out that such a high player count would not work with the design of the game. As an example, he mentions farming resources, especially the rare ones, and how it would be if 30,000 players were trying to get such a resource.
During the conversation, Scot Lane then talks about the work on possible new content and says:
Rest assured, we still want to introduce things that are fun. Yes, really quickly. But not at the risk of breaking things.
“It adds a lot of work”
The problems with creating new content: Creative Director Verfaillie then talks about saving armor sets. He knows that everyone wants to change their equipment. But this is certainly also true for attributes or weapon mastery. According to Verfaillie, this raises the question of whether to release everything together or just the equipment first, so they can implement the change more quickly.
Geiser then states that, when saving equipment sets, the technical requirements must also be considered: “If you have hundreds of people on your screen and everyone is constantly changing their equipment, that’s a lot of stuff / data we have to send, and it can clog the ‘pipes.'”
Another question that Verfaillie raises is, “Why don’t we just make another weapon?” He then states that a weapon triggers an effect that “spawns things.” This, according to him, affects the game.
Lane adds that balancing issues must also be taken into account and that each new weapon requires new animations and sound effects. Additionally, there’s the creation of named items, Verfaillie adds and notes, “So it just adds a lot of work.”
“Easy” is not the same as “quick”
Why do simple additions take a lot of time? At the end of the conversation, Lane explains that not the difficulty, but the time is the most significant factor in the work. According to him, some things are “super easy,” but take a very long time – especially when you value high quality.
Lane shares that he tells friends who are not in game development to search for the “door problem” online and explains: “A designer goes to an engineer and says, ‘I want to install a door.’ And he replies, ‘Oh, does the door open and close? Can you go through the door? Does it open from the left or does it open from the right? Is it lockable?'”
Lane wants to illustrate with the example that even a seemingly simple action raises numerous questions that must be clarified. Verfaillie then adds that “easy” and “quick” are not the same and gives a fitting comparison:
“It is easy to count up to a million …”
