There is controversy surrounding the upcoming New World from Amazon. The shift from an open PvP game to an open-world MMO with a PvE focus is concerning many. How did the developers manage to do this so quickly? They answered our editor, Leya Jankowski, in an interview.
We from MeinMMO were invited by various media representatives from Amazon Game Studios to see New World on-site. There were also opportunities for interviews with the developers.
A topic that is weighing heavily on the community’s mind is the shift from open PvP to open-world PvE. The forced PvP was removed during development and now has a toggle in the open world. The change in New World is causing some discontent.
The alpha tests were completed in 2019. In December 2019, the developers revealed that New World was restructured and is now an open-world MMO, with direct PvE content such as quests. This caused discontent. On the one hand, fans of unrestricted PvP felt robbed of a game, and on the other hand, there were concerns about how the developers managed to give the game a new direction so quickly.
In the interview, the developers explained how they approached the game’s transformation and elaborated on their intentions with the new PvE focus. Our questions were answered by Scot Lane, the Game Director of New World, and Richard Lawrence, the Studio Director of Amazon Game Studios.
You can find our first impression of New World here:
PvE content was always planned
MeinMMO: “Scot, we talked yesterday after the [New World] presentation about the ‘PvE vs. PvP’ topic. I think a lot of people still need a better explanation of this. I wonder, when did you decide to turn the game around from a PvP focus to more open-world, MMO, and PvE? How long did it take to shape this new direction?”
Scot Lane: “We decided directly when we ended the alpha last year. We saw that the PvE players were not having as much fun. We had many conversations, we conducted many surveys. So we gathered a lot of data and played the game itself along with the testers. This led us to the conclusion that more players would benefit from this decision, thus making the larger player base happy.
That was actually what we always aimed for with PvP. We wanted more quests and PvE. We spent a lot of time thinking about how to close these gaps and what a good global fix would be. Most of the time was spent in design. That means sitting down, planning everything, and understanding where we want to go exactly with [the new direction]. The implementation went pretty quickly.”
Planning takes a long time for developers, not implementation
MeinMMO: “How did you manage to implement it so quickly? Many are wondering how it’s possible to turn the focus of a game in such a short time?”
Scot Lane: “We have a pretty robust toolset. You can implement a lot quickly if you take the time to sit down and plan. It always seems to go slower when you just dive in and do something.
We already knew that we wanted things like quests in the game, we already knew we wanted more direct content. So we didn’t have to stop and rethink the entire design from scratch.
We already had much of that in our plans. We just didn’t get to it because we wanted to fix other things. There were things like – “Oh, everyone gets ganked at the beach, let’s revise that.” – So initially, we just pushed problems aside instead of stopping and really fixing them. That was our approach.”
“We didn’t remove PvP from the game”
MeinMMO: “So it wasn’t the case that you first had to destroy the entire game and make something completely new?”
Scot Lane: “No. […] We are adding things that we already have. When we introduce new systems, we can adapt a main system like how PvP worked. We didn’t remove PvP from the game; we just made it an opt-in feature.
So we didn’t redesign the PvP system; we just made it so that you can toggle PvP on and off. […]
The game has always been about land and territory and owning it, just like the war around it. PvP is the way to achieve that. But to get the territory war that we love and to make it fun doesn’t require full-loot open-world PvP all the time. We thought it would be cool to find a way to achieve that, but ultimately, it just didn’t work out.”
The “wanting to please everyone” problem
MeinMMO: “It can be problematic to try to please everyone. If you try to please everyone, you might end up pleasing no one. How do you approach this issue?”
Scot Lane: “With every game you make, you have to choose your base. There are some successful PvE-PvP games. That’s not an impossible formula. What makes it different for us is our combat system and then the territory war on top of that. But our base is a PvE-PvP game.
I firmly believe that PvP players also enjoy PvE content, while PvE players are less inclined to play PvP content. But they tolerate it when they are not forced to participate in PvP. It can happen around them, but it doesn’t ruin their experience.”
The Game Director believes PvE players will eventually enjoy PvP content
MeinMMO: “You mentioned something during the presentation yesterday that I found very interesting. You said you are convinced that PvE players will eventually start to enjoy PvP content as well. Why do you believe that?”
Scot Lane: “You already played a PvP battle yesterday. You say that you are a PvE player. Did you enjoy the battle?”
MeinMMO: “Yes, I definitely enjoyed it.”
Scot Lane: “What I think will happen: We have invasions, and they are very similar to PvP battles. The difference is that we have 50 players fighting against a huge swarm of AI enemies to defend a fortress.
Once you understand how it works and enjoy it, and you’re in the endgame, I believe it’s only natural to start wondering what the PvP version is like. There’s no penalty for participating; there are only benefits. I don’t think it makes PvE players into PvP players. But I believe they can find a lot of fun in the endgame here.”
That’s why there are no separate PvE and PvP servers
MeinMMO: Why did you decide to run PvE and PvP together on one server? There was still the option to offer separate servers.
Richard Lawrence: “The main reason is that it separates the players. What we have seen in games that have done this in recent years is that the PvP servers of those games become less and less populated over time. […]
We were worried that if we set up PvP-exclusive servers, the players wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves. They get stronger, upgrade their equipment, and when new players join the server, it can be very overwhelming: Wow, everyone has better equipment than I do, and they are better than I am. This makes fewer new players attracted to play on that server. […]
We simply don’t want anyone coming into the game later, perhaps 6 months after release, to just die on a PvP server. They may die hundreds of times. That simply isn’t fun.
But the fundamental reason is: Don’t separate the community unless you absolutely have to. We would rather, and this is a big challenge, have PvE and PvP players interact with and complement each other. This is part of the city structure. Wars are part of the cities, and as a PvE player, you don’t even have to participate in the war.
But war impacts the players. Maybe taxes have adjusted a bit. Perhaps you develop a bond with the people guarding your fortress and start helping them because you appreciate what they do. So, even if you’re not a PvP player, you might want to do something for the PvP players.”
Check out current gameplay in the video
Together with our colleagues at GameStar, we recorded a video in which you can see fresh gameplay. You see parts of gameplay trailers, but also some scenes from the mass battle I participated in.
