Chris Wilson, the chief developer of Path of Exile, commented in an interview with YouTuber Josh Strife Hayes about the launch of New World. He has a very clear opinion about the game. If it were his game, he would move it back into beta and force a complete restart.
Where does the chief see the problem with New World? In the conversation, Chris Wilson emphasized that he has not played New World himself. However, he has heard a lot about the game and has watched Hayes’ video among other things.
He does not see the major difficulty in any server problems or queues at launch. He himself has experienced catastrophic releases with such problems. Instead, he is disturbed by the exploits that have undermined players’ trust:
There was a consistent theme among many problems [of New World] that really bothered me. And that was the economic exploits that were severe and were fixed too slowly. Rollbacks did not come at the right time, and so on.
And that undermines the trust that people have in a game because we play games to progress, especially in online games. We play with friends to level up faster, farm more gold, or get better items.
In a game where progress is literally the way you measure what you are working on, the ability for someone to cheat their way to faster progress […] is not fun.
How would he deal with New World now? Wilson would revert the game back to beta. In Chris Wilson’s eyes, the economy in the game is so important that any damage must be repaired. Server problems can later be fixed with new servers, but a broken economy would always remain problematic.
If I were to launch a game and there were so many problems, I would simply move it back to beta and do whatever it takes before I conduct a major wipe and release a stable game where player progress is actually reliable and properly tracked.
Wilson receives a lot of support from viewers
How is the statement received? Under the video, there are many voices that agree with Chris Wilson.
- For the user Formulka, the exploits are precisely the big problem: “I would probably get into New World, but all these exploits make me feel like I would be falling behind and that all my achievements would feel empty and worthless.”
- Also, MempoEdits was there and feels directly addressed: “That’s literally me. I endured all the start problems of New World, but when it turned out that there were massive gold dupes and the trading post became a mess, I stopped playing and haven’t started it since.”
- Brett Bowers also agrees, but fears that there is no real solution: “It’s true, but bots exist in all games. That makes every economy instantly ruined and it’s hard to keep up with people who buy everything from gold sellers.”
Some others emphasize that while there were economic problems, other things also contributed to the decline of New World, including the boring leveling phase, lack of endgame, balance issues, and bugs.
Moreover, others confirm that they left games like WoW or other MMORPGs because there were issues with the economy. Some see the introduction of the WoW token as a problem because players can buy everything for real money.
Is there also criticism of Wilson? A little bit. Even though most viewers believe that the economy is a major problem of New World, some wish that Wilson would first take a look at his own game, Path of Exile. There are said to be problems there as well.
- Anderson Souto writes, for example: “The economy is exactly the reason why I left Path of Exile after 6,000 hours. Every league was the same: I had to play the cheapest build, only to find out that a streamer talked about it and suddenly the amulet you need costs 45EX.”
- Auralan points out the bot problem: “Chris talks about the importance of the economy while PoE has been absolutely plagued for years by price collusion for pretty much everything that is meta. And it’s getting worse. There are so many bots that a normal person can hardly buy many materials properly. Nice sentiment, but damn man, fix your own game first.”
- RPGMasterN8 complains: “Economy, really? Path of Exile has dozens of websites where things are sold for real money.”
Under the video, there is also criticism for various update decisions and server problems. Moreover, the game is not free from bugs. Just recently, a bug that had existed in the game for six years was fixed.
In the coming years, a type of expansion similar to Overwatch 2 is set to be released with Path of Exile 2. Everything about it in the video:
Still, Path of Exile is an extremely popular game. It just broke its player record on Steam in February, which was over 8 years old.
What do you think about Chris Wilson’s statement? Would you also wish for a wipe in New World? Would the salvation of the economy bring you back? Or what should New World change in your opinion?
