New World: Aeternum News

Greetings, Adventurers!

One of the most enduring mysteries of Brimstone Sands is the massive creature known as the Devourer. An ancient group calling themselves the Blood of the Sands, and their leader Malek, have emerged from the shadows to seek help in finding the eggs of these beasts. Get to know the characters from Season 2 - Blood of the Sands and then continue their story in-game on July 6.

[h2]RIMA BAHAR[/h2]


[h3]QUOTES[/h3]

• “You in the back! I can’t hear you singing! Let’s go!”
  
• “What I seek is more valuable - it's inspiration whether by story or song.”
  
• “The chance to partner with you and bear witness to your heroic deeds… that is a bonus.”
  
• “I’ve met stately, noble gentry; And shipwrecked men of twenty!”
  
• “Ah, you’re wondering where this map leads? I may know someone who can tell you...”
  

[h3]BIO[/h3]

• Where to find Rima: Entertaining in taverns throughout Aeternum
  
• Cultural background: Persian
  
• Occupation: Lively performer, Seeker of Secrets
  
• Likes: A good rousing performance, talented musicians, deciphering lost mysteries
  
• Dislikes: Hecklers, snapping for applause, messy campsites
  
• Little-known facts about Rima: She may, or may not, have a network of spies at her disposal
  

[h3]ABOUT RIMA[/h3]
Rima is a traveling bard, a scholar, and collector of knowledge. She travels the sands of Brimstone, learning what she can about the history of her home, and performing for taverns and inns to earn her keep. She is secretive about her past and how she came to Aeternum. If you were to ask ten people about Rima, you would get ten different answers about her history. Still, she has been to all the known corners of Aeternum, which suggests she has lived on the island for longer than she admits.

Although Rima does a fair bit of traveling, she always finds her way back to the desert cities, regaling the people of New Corsica with tales from across Aeternum. Few people know the desert as well as she does, and she will often delve into the mysteries and secrets of Brimstone when she isn’t performing.

Rima isn’t driven by the promise of gold and riches as many others might be, as adventure seems to be its own reward to her. Getting on her good side can often be done by offering a journey to a place she hasn’t been or deciphering an enticing mystery in some forgotten ruins. Wherever adventure, music, and good times can be found, be assured that Rima Bahar will be at the center of it.

[h2]MALEK[/h2]


[h3]QUOTE[/h3]

• “The Blood of the Sands will reclaim their rightful place!”
  

[h3]BIO[/h3]

• Where to find Malek: Searching the sands of Brimstone for the eggs of the Devourers
  
• Cultural background: Persian
  
• Occupation: Leader of the Blood of the Sands
  
• Likes: Researching history, exploring ruins, loyalty
  
• Dislikes: Those that forget the past
  
• Little-known facts about Malek: Not a lot is known about Malek - he keeps things to himself
  

[h3]ABOUT MALEK[/h3]
Malek is the leader of the Blood of the Sands, a group of desert dwellers who claim to have a lineage that stretches back into the grand past of Brimstone. Although the group had rarely been seen until recently, Malek has worked to bring them back into the world, claiming a great history that he wants to rebuild. They have built a small outpost in the eastern sands of Brimstone where they recruit members and work on their secretive agenda.

Malek himself is something of an enigma. No one seems to be sure where he came from and how he came to lead the order. Still, his charisma and passion help him guide the group, who see him as something of a savior. While secretive, Malek and the Blood of the Sands are not above hiring the right hands to do the work that they cannot, and several mercenaries have found themselves in his employ.

Whoever Malek really is and what his aims are may be unknown, but there is no question that he is leading the Blood of the Sands into a new era, and there seems to be little that will stop him.

[h2]SHARIF SHARA[/h2]


[h3]QUOTES[/h3]

• “The sands are my bed and the sky is my blanket. I am free.”
  
• “What’s better than good food, good song, and a dark-haired beauty by your side?”
  
• “I could find the ruins you’re looking for... if the coin is right.”
  

[h3]BIO[/h3]

• Where to find Sharif: Wandering the sands of Brimstone, going where the wind takes him
  
• Cultural background: Arabic
  
• Occupation: Wanderer, thief, treasure hunter
  
• Likes: Finding treasure, living free, nights at the tavern
  
• Dislikes: Responsibility, getting caught
  
• Little-known facts about Sharif: He’s not as carefree as he professes...
  

[h3]ABOUT SHARIF[/h3]
Scoundrel, thief, bandit... Sharif has many names among the people of Brimstone, and few of them are flattering. Many a traveling merchant and unwitting caravan have had their load lightened by him, if rumors around New Corsica are to be believed. It is hard to dispute those rumors, as Sharif will disappear for weeks at a time, only to suddenly return to the tavern with a bag full of coin.

However, it’s his free-spirited attitude that also earns him something of a folk hero status, even when people are cursing his name for their missing coin. His carefree spirit and natural charisma seem to blunt many sharp words directed his way, and an enemy at the beginning of the night often becomes a fast friend by the end. It seems few stay angry with the desert wanderer for long.

Despite his carefree demeanor, few know the ruins of Brimstone as well as Sharif Shara. He seems to possess an uncanny knowledge of many of the ruins, often describing their history and past use. Scholars of the desert scoff at his ideas, only to find out how accurate his stories are during further studies. When asked how he knows the ruins so well, all Sharif does is wink and toss a few coins to the tavern keeper.

Complete the seasonal story to find out what happens next. Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.

Greetings, Adventurers!

Get a taste of Cross World Outpost Rush in Wave 3 of the Season 2 PTR. There will be a US East PTR 1 world and a US East PTR 2 world. Downtime will begin at 12:00PM PT on June 22 and last approximately 90 minutes.

If you encounter a bug, exploit, or have suggestions to improve a feature or piece of content, we’d love to hear your feedback on our Discord (you can also utilize our in-game feedback tool). We will do our best to address as much of your feedback as possible before the content update makes its way to our live servers. Your participation will help us to deliver awesome content and updates in the future!

Check out an in-depth breakdown of the release in our official announcement and stay tuned to our social channels for updates.

[h2]World Experience
[/h2]

• Fixed an issue that caused butterfly wing VFX to grow over time.
  
• Data will now be sent to the UI for specific Quest types instead of the last Quest in the list.
  

[h2]AI Updates[/h2]

• Reduced detonation time of Sandwurm Pellet Bombs from 15 to 12 seconds.
  
• Reduced Sandwurm vulnerability from Thrust weapons from 0.2 to 0.1
  
• Increased duration of acid line left from the Sandwurm's Acid Spew attack from 3 to 6 seconds.
  

Tuning adjustments were made to the Hordemaster boss in the Hatchery Seasonal Trial:

• Increased damage of the Reforged Grunt attacks by 50%.
  
• Increased damage from Hatchet Bomb by 50%.
  
• Increased damage from the second hit of Feral Rush by 65%.
  
• Increased the total health of the boss by 50%.
  

[h2]Game Modes
[/h2][h3]Outpost Rush
[/h3]

• Halved the personal points awarded for player damage from 0.01 to 0.005.
  
• Increased personal score points for AI kills from 10 to 20.
  
• Increased personal score for capture point contests from 0.2 to 0.3.
  

[h3]PvP Arenas
[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where 3v3 Arena HUD and Scoreboard didn't update when a player was backfilled into a match.
  
• Fixed PvP overtime sulfur ring visuals to better reflect the actual damage zone.
  

[h2]UX/UI/Social
[/h2]

• Fixed a bug that caused reading journal documents to show the wrong number of unlocked pages.
  

[h2]Economy, Progression, and Gear
[/h2]

• Fixed an issue that caused some sources of Trade Skill experience to double when applied to aptitude.
  
• Changed the Focus attribute progression bonus at 50 and 200 points from line tension (which was bugged) to increase the chance of catching larger fish.
  

[h2]Seasons [/h2]

• Fixed missing icon for Sun-Baked Baldaquin camp skin.
  
• Fixed Sandstorm Champion's Chest incorrectly awarding the Season 1 player title.
  
• Fixed a label and typo on the Transmog Token tooltip in the seasons reward track.
  

[h3]Flame Keeper Season Trials
[/h3]

• Reduced the damage of Meteor Shower by 10%.
  
• Adjusted Meteor Shower to now cast at the target's position at the time of cast versus when the spell first spawns. The player can now move after the target appears over their head, and the Meteor Shower will now spawn at their original location, giving players more flexibility to dodge the attack.
  

Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.

Greetings, Adventurers!

Go behind the scenes for a better look at the massive sandwurm, elite rewards, and roaring audio that comprise Aeternum’s greatest challenge yet. Skill alone is insufficient. Players brave enough to enter the Arena of Shah Neshen must coordinate throughout multiple phases. How will you defeat the Devourer?

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]REWARDS[/h2]
Topple the mighty beast and wear your exclusive Sandwurm hides with pride. There are daily, weekly, and basic rewards:

[h3]WEEKLY REWARDS[/h3]
The Major Sandwurm Spoils Reward Cache can be earned once per week and will contain:

• 1 Named Sandwurm Weapon (625 Gear Score fixed-perk weapon, trinket, or LMH armor piece. Guaranteed expertise bump)
  
• 3 Gypsum Orbs
  
• Heartrune of the Devourer Tier 1
  
• 8000 Umbral Shards
  
• 200 Sandwurm Materia
  

[h3]DAILY REWARDS
[/h3]The Minor Sandwurm Spoils Reward Cache can be earned once per day and will contain:

• 1 Timeless Shard
  
• 2000 Umbral Shards
  
• 1 Gypsum Orb
  
• 200 Sandwurm Materia
  

1 Sandwurm item:

• 50% chance to receive a Named Sandwurm item at 625 Gear Score.
  
• 50% chance to receive a Rolled Sandwurm item at 610 Gear Score.
  

[h3]BASIC REWARDS[/h3]
The following rewards will be earned after each victory:

• 1 Rolled Sandwurm item (scaled by expertise + 10 Gear Score)
  
• 500 Umbral Shards
  

[h3]MATERIA DETAILS[/h3]

• Players can use 1000 Sandwurm Materia to craft a named weapon or accessory from the Sandwurm loot table.
  

[h3]SANDWURM ITEMS
[/h3]Light Armor

• Silken Litham - Headwear
  
• Silken Cocoon - Chestwear
  
• Silken Femora - Legwear
  
• Silken Barbs - Gloves
  
• Silken Cerci - Footwear
  

Medium Armor

• Dune Maxillae - Headwear
  
• Dune Tagma - Chestwear
  
• Dune Podomere - Legwear
  
• Dune Arolium - Gloves
  
• Dune Euplantula - Footwear
  

Heavy Armor

• Sandlion Mandibles - Headwear
  
• Sandlion Carapace - Chestwear
  
• Sandlion Coxa - Legwear
  
• Sandlion Claws - Gloves
  
• Sandlion Tarsus - Footwear
  

Shields

• Round Sclerite Shield - Round Shield
  
• Full Sclerite Shield - Kite Shield
  
• Tall Sclerite Shield - Tower Shield
  

Jewelry

• Ring of Shah Neshen - Ring
  
• Earring of Shah Neshen - Earring
  
• Amulet of Shah Neshen - Amulet
  

Melee Weapons

• Sclerite Maul - War Hammer
  
• Sclerite Hook - Hatchet
  
• Sclerite Stinger - Spear
  
• Sclerite Epee - Rapier
  
• Sclerite Stylet - Sword
  
• Sclerite Tusk - Greatsword
  
• Sclerite Pincer - Great Axe
  

Ranged Weapons

• Sclerite Quarry - Bow
  
• Sclerite Hollow - Blunderbuss
  
• Sclerite Vent - Musket
  

Magic Weapons

• Sclerite Illicium - Life Staff
  
• Sclerite Photocyte - Fire Staff
  
• Sclerite Hajdi - Void Gauntlet
  
• Sclerite Ice Crawler - Ice Gauntlet
  

[h2]AUDIO[/h2]

Sound Designer Kyle Bailey shared insight into the sandwurm’s audio:

“By now, players have likely seen the sandwurm roaming Brimstone Sands and are familiar with the sonic palette we’ve used to establish what it can currently do,” Kyle said. “For the epic trial, we expanded upon that palette to create intentional gameplay cues and evoke a more fearsome creature.”

[h3]ANCIENT VOCALS[/h3]

“At the core of the sandwurm’s vocalizations is the ancient voice. Its tonality can be heard in the fight, layered with elephant vocals to create a base layer. Though, this wasn’t enough. More aggressive textures were needed to make the players feel that this beast was truly dangerous. So, I tapped our audio director Jean-Edouard Miclot to provide a fresh approach. Mixing his vicious creature design with the ancient voice gave us something new, yet terrifying with a hint of familiarity.”

[h3]SIZZLING ACID[/h3]

“The sound effects associated with the various attacks were designed with vocals in mind. I looked for opportunities to highlight one or the other at specific moments so they weren’t fighting for space in the mix. You may have noticed, acid is a major part of the worm’s repertoire. The sizzling we often associate with the burning sensation acid brings can take up a lot of space. I found that leaning into the more liquid textures provided a believable acid sound, without an overbearing amount of hiss and sizzle.”

[h3]PROPANE TANK WORM PELLETS[/h3]

“The worm pellet mechanic was very fun to work on. I took inspiration from the Gleamite meteors and the sounds they make when mined. I recorded a propane tank, as well as a metal bowl with a small layer of water. Filling metal receptacles with water and swishing it around can give you some awesome, tonally pitched sounds.”

[h3]EPIC ENCOUNTER
[/h3]

“We wanted to kick this fight off in epic fashion. Players strike a drum and send ripples across the arid hills of Brimstone. Something shifts beneath the sand — its rhythm striking fear into the hearts of Aeternum’s travelers. Shah Neshen circles the creaky wooden structure, bursts open the gate, and finally destroys the drum. The fight has begun.”

Thanks for your support and good luck in the arena! You’ll need it.

Greetings, Adventurers!

Consume everything when the Devourer Heartrune releases alongside Blood of the Sands on July 6. We caught up with Combat Designer Josh Hurley for a glimpse into the ability’s concept, design, and challenges. The team always wanted to turn the sandwurm into a Heartrune, but burrowed through numerous iterations before landing on the final version.

[h2]CONCEPT[/h2]

“When we were asked to make a Heartrune for this release, we immediately wanted to include the Devourer. We just didn’t know exactly how we to do it. What if your arm turned into a worm and you slapped enemies with it? What if your head turned into a big Devourer mouth and you chomped down on targets? What if you threw a little bitty worm at a target, it bit their head, and then blocked their vision for a few seconds? We eventually landed on the 'summoning' aspect. Now it pops out of the ground."

“During early prototyping we used emotes as animations to set up the ability. There was a point in time where the pose to summon it used the “Wiggle Dance” emote, and although it looked kind of ridiculous, I will always love the concept of doing a little wiggly dance to summon the Devourer.”


“We wanted to add the concept of a backup attack, which we haven’t really used in prior abilities. Following our recent balance changes to separate damage from crowd control, plus the usage of Grit and Uninterruptible to prevent stagger, it creates another layer of interesting gameplay. What better way to add salt to a player’s wounds than with a chomp when they Grit their way through the initial knockback area?”

[h2]DESIGN[/h2]
“The Devourer Heartrune has two parts to it. If a player can somehow avoid the initial knockback as it emerges, the chomp is there as a back up to deal damage. Most of the time targets will get knocked outside of the radius of the follow up attack by the first hit. But those that Grit through that first attack, or avoid it via other mechanisms, will take a bigger chunk of damage.”


“We decided to break from reality with this ability and allow it to trigger on platforms and raised areas where the Devourer cannot actually burrow. One nice moment during an internal War playtest was getting into the defender’s fort and then using the Heartrune to knock ranged defenders off of the walls toward the attackers. It was really gratifying.”

“The Devourer is quite stubborn and doesn’t instantly appear when summoned, so leading a moving target will yield more favorable results.”

[h2]CHALLENGES[/h2]

“The method of chompy deployment was something that we couldn’t nail down initially. We went through a few different methods, including a ranged melee attack where you summon it out from under you, a projectile that would bait out the Devourer, and a simple summon along the ground similar to other spells. Each one had their own individual benefits as well as their shortcomings.”

“I personally favored the projectile. However, knowing our player base, and ourselves, it definitely would have been a development nightmare due to the amount of locations that a projectile could have landed.”

Stay tuned for more Season 2 previews. Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.

Greetings, Adventurers!

Wave 2.2 of the Season 2 PTR introduces bug fixes for the Blood of the Sands seasonal content. Downtime will begin at 11:00AM PT on June 15 and last approximately 90 minutes.

If you encounter a bug, exploit, or have suggestions to improve a feature or piece of content, we’d love to hear your feedback on our Discord (you can also utilize our in-game feedback tool). We will do our best to address as much of your feedback as possible before the content update makes its way to our live servers. Your participation will help us to deliver awesome content and updates in the future!

Check out an in-depth breakdown of the release in our official announcement and stay tuned to our social channels for updates.

[h2]Economy, Progression, and Gear[/h2]

• Replaced the models and icons for Artisan items. They no longer use the glass/transparent models but the new, intended ones instead.
  
• The Artisan line of items now have the proper durability and weight assignments.
  
• The Umbral Shard rewards for the Sandwurm encounter have been increased. You now get 500 per kill (previously 100), 2000 in the daily chest (previously 1000) and 8000 in the weekly chest (previously 2000).
  

[h2]Seasonal Content
[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where a target marker would appear over a player's head but Hadish Azar would instead burnout towards the center of his arena.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause Hadish Azar's Meteor Shower warning marker to not appear on both players heads.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Hadish Azar's Flame Waves to not reach the corners of his arena.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Explosive Sulfur Core to kill players with explosive damage after it was destroyed.
  
• Modified Hadish Azar's Flame Vacuum so that it always pulls the player to him.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Enraged Devourer Drone to get stuck below ground.
  

The following changes have been made to the Hatchery Trial rewards based on player feedback:

• Corsica Bandit Named Set: replaced Freedom with Human Ward.
  
• Scholarly Jongleur Named Set: replaced Invigorated with Human Ward.
  
• Hordemaster Named Set: replaced Invigorated with Human Ward.
  
• Oasis Graverobber Weapons: first perk bucket guarantees Bane perk, item guaranteed purple rarity or better.
  
• Waterseeker, Wanderer, and Warmonger Armor Sets: first perk bucket guarantees Ward perk, item guaranteed purple rarity or better.
  
• Added 15% chance to get a Golden Scarab from the Bonus Box, and changed the chance of Writ of Adventure to 15%.
  
• Increased amount of procedural gear awarded from a Normal run from 2 to 6.
  

[h2]Raid Groups
[/h2]

• Fixed an issue that caused raid members to appear in multiple groups when moved while offline.
  

[h2]UX/UI[/h2]

• Fixed an issue that caused white boxes to show on raid screens.
  

Trial of the Devourer:

• Replaced Average Gear Score with Recommended Gear Score.
  
• Changed the remaining time to show time until reset.
  

Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.