New World: Aeternum News

Greetings, Adventurers!

The Earth has been restless since the Ennead awoke. Empower your weapons, confront Dryads, and save Aeternum from the Fury of the Spriggan. Courageous players can join 20+ Adventurers in open world encounters from May 24 to June 13 for daily, event-specific rewards.

Dryad Shamans have been spotted throughout Brightwood, Ebonscale Reach, Edengrove, Mourningdale, and Brimstone Sands. Construct Flame Braziers to strengthen your weapons before these deadly foes overrun Aeternum.

[h2]LORE[/h2]


An aching moan of wood echoes through the forest. Though the air is still, the leaves quiver rhythmically with the lumbering plod of a great force of nature. The towering silhouette casts long shadows across the ancient treetops and yet it brings the wood no harm – not so much as a twig is snapped or a bramble trampled. This giant is kin of the flora, the Spriggan, and it has embarked on a righteous path to strike down with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy all that which is natural and pure.

The Earth has been uneasy since the re-awakening of the Ennead and the time to take action is now. Dryads have converged to summon a mighty Spriggan and combat that which threatens the natural order – be it Ancient, Corrupted, or Human. All shall know the fury of the Earth.

[h2]REWARDS[/h2]



[h3]COMPLETION REWARDS[/h3]
Each victory over the Spriggan nets players one of the following rewards:

• A 50% chance of rolling a level-appropriate procedural weapon or armor piece
  
• Guaranteed to be Rare or above.
  
• A 30% chance of rolling an item from the Global Named List.
  
• A 20% chance of rolling an item from the Spriggan Arena Named List.
  

Additional guaranteed spoils include:

• A roll for various container resources.
  
• A roll of level-appropriate consumables (health, mana, etc.).
  
• 1 Obsidian Gypsum (standard 3x loot limit still applies).
  

[h3]DAILY BONUS REWARDS[/h3]


Players can topple the Spriggan multiple times throughout the same day, but will only receive a maximum of 3 daily bonus rewards. These reset at 5 AM local time. For example, if a player grabs their third Cache at 4:58 AM, they’ll be able to earn another at 5:01 AM.

Defeat the Spriggan to earn a special Cache (up to 3 daily) containing event-specific loot:

• 1 event-only Mossborne Weapon:
  
• Guaranteed to have Weapon Appropriate Attribute + Empty Gem Slot + Angry Earth Bane Perk.
  
• 1 event-only Mossborne Armor Piece:
  
• Guaranteed to have Armor Weight Appropriate Attribute + Empty Gem Slot + Angry Earth Ward Perk.
  
• 250 Umbral Shards.
  
• 3 to 5 Flame Cores.
  

Triumphant players also get:
A roll with -

• A 33% chance of rolling 1 of 12 selected perk resources.
  
• A 25% chance of rolling 1 of 6 exclusive Named items.
  
• A 5% chance of rolling a Timeless Shard.
  

A roll with a 2% chance of Spriggan Flame Brazier housing item:

• This percentage chance increases slightly after each roll.
  

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

Greetings, Adventurers!

Becoming more powerful through higher stats and more effective abilities should always feel satisfying. However, there must be a balance. Fast progression can lack a steady sense of growth, while slower progression can feel like a grind. Learn more about how the team balances Crafting progression in the video below.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]PROGRESSION BALANCE[/h2]
Senior Systems Designer Tony Morton walked us through their experience striving to make impactful progression changes:

“One of the most interesting things about working on Crafting and progression is how excited we get but then how hard we are hit when slapped with reality. I remember chatting with Phil about increasing the first time craft bonus. We went back and forth about really making it impactful and both started with a super ambitious boost to 5X or even 10X from the previous 2X. We were both like, this will be awesome! Then I set it up and within about 5 minutes of testing I quickly realized that 10X would pretty much break any sense of a leveling curve. It was sooooo fast."

“I turned it down to 5X but still had the same problem. I was ZOOOOMING through leveling for some of the professions. Phil and I were both a little defeated because we really wanted to say ‘LOOK AT THIS HUGE CHANGE,’ but only moved it up by 1 from 2X to 3X, haha.”

“All that said, we’re happy with where it’s at right now and leveling crafting is so much smoother than it was when we originally launched.”

What progression changes would you like to see? Let us know on Discord, Reddit, or the YouTube comments section. Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.

Greetings, Adventurers!

New World Update 1.9.3 downtime will begin at 11:00PM PT (6:00AM UTC) on May 9 and includes fixes to Gear Set Slots, Springtide Bloom, and more. Downtime is slated to last approximately 1 hour.

[h2]WORLD EXPERIENCE[/h2]
[h3]SPRINGTIDE BLOOM[/h3]

• The Beekeeper and Springtime Ruffles apparel sets have been broken into individual purchases inside of the Springtide event shop.
  
• Added a Heartrune charge to the Wispy Wasp swarm.
  
• The Springtide Premium Token recipe (the one where you exchange Wispy Wasp Goo) is now listed as "Premium Token" in the crafting menu.
  
• Players can now get 4 Springtide Jingle coin bags a day, up from 3.
  

[h2]QUESTS[/h2]

• Periville Guards now drop the Intact Spear Haft quest item in the ‘Book Three: Parodos in the A Spear to Pierce the Heavens’ questline.
  
• Returning players who have only completed part of the original MSQ can now speak to Yonas to resume it in Brightwood.
  
• Removed 3 deprecated lore notes from Elafry Pyrgo which caused the game to soft-lock on interaction.
  
• Invisible collision has been removed once again from the entrance of the Crystal Cavern.
  

[h2]GAME MODES[/h2]
[h3]OUTPOST RUSH[/h3]

• Fixed an issue that caused players to unintentionally bring game-mode specific items like powder kegs into the open world.
  

[h3]Empyrean Forge Expedition
[/h3]

• Commander Marius's magma ball hazard will now display a secondary ring to denote the area in which the impact shockwave will cause minor damage and stagger the player.
  

[h2]ECONOMY, PROGRESSION, & GEAR[/h2]
[h3]GEAR/ITEMS[/h3]

• Fixed an issue that caused items in purchased Gear Set Slots to return to player inventories on login.
  

[h3]Economy[/h3]

• Open world Elite chests in Level 55+ Varangian POIs now have a 75% chance to drop a Flame Core, down from 100%.
  
• Open world Regular chests in Level 55+ Varangian POIs now have a 10% chance to drop a Flame Core, down from 20%.
  
• Unstable Casts now costs 3 Flame Cores to craft, down from 10.
  
• Players can now craft 6 Unstable Casts daily, up from 3.
  
• Improved quality of items generated by Unstable Cast from the Flame Core Forge. This was done by removing PvP perks and Resistance perks.
  

[h3]Season Pass[/h3]

Update: We will disable 5 Season Activities that proved more challenging and costly to complete than intended. We anticipate this change will make your Activity Card progression easier.

The 5 impacted activities are:

• Craft 10 items using Poultry Thights.
  
• Craft 10 items using Sumptuous Rabbit.
  
• Craft 10 items using Prime Armadillo meat.
  
• Consume 10 Tier 5 Tradeskill Consumables.
  
• Consume 10 Tier 5 Resistance Consumables.
  

Fixed an issue where level 60 players sometimes would not receive the "Just Getting Started" task in Chapter 1.

Added several new Season Pass activity tasks:

• Kill 10 enemies in Mykrguard
  
• Kill 10 enemies in Imperial Palace
  
• Kill 10 enemies in Malevolence
  
• Kill 10 enemies in Eternal Pools
  
• Kill 10 enemies in Beds of Ta-BitJet
  
• Kill 2 named enemies
  
• Kill 20 elite enemies
  

Adjusted the following PVP Season Pass activities:

• Earn Flawless victory in PVP arena was changed to Earn 1 victory in PvP arena
  
• Earn 1000 pvp experience from valid player kills was changed to earn 100 pvp experience from valid player kills.
  
• Participate in 3 arenas was changed to participate in 1 arena
  
• Deal 100000 damage or healing in arena was changed to deal 50000 damage or healing in arena
  
• Earn 5000 azoth salt was changed to earn 1000 azoth salt
  
• Complete 2 pvp faction missions was changed to complete 1 pvp faction mission
  

Adjusted the following crafting Season Pass activities:

• Craft 5 tier 5 weapons or apparel was changed to craft 3 tier 5 weapons or apparel
  
• Consume 10 tier 5 coatings was reduced to consume 2 tier 5 coatings
  

Adjusted the following Season Journey tasks:

• Rush of Victory II - Reduced required Outpost Rush wins from 10 to 5
  
• Holding the Fort - Reduced required Invasion completions from 2 to 1
  
• Worldwide Warrior - Reduced required Open World player kills from 50 to 15
  

Adjusted requirements for multiple Season Journey challenges:

• Outpost Rush Domination - Reduced required Outpost Rush wins from 100 to 30
  
• Serial Killer - Reduced required kills from 500 to 100
  
• Contesting the Control Points - Reduced required Faction Control Point captures from 50 to 30
  
• Legendary Craft - Reduced required craft amount from 125 to 100
  
• Give Me Gold or Give Me Death - Renamed to Mutation Master and changed required Expedition rating from Gold to Silver
  

[h2]UX/UI[/h2]
[h3]QOL[/h3]

• Removed the Gear Set Storage tooltip commands when your character is under level 25. These previously showed if you had purchased an additional Gear Set Slot with another character.
  
• Added translations for the Fire Storm Heartrune tooltip.
  
• Added additional translations to the Territory Planning Board UI.
  
• The Main Menu has returned to its standard music soundtrack.
  
• Fixed an issue with Leaderboards where the rewards countdown message displayed earlier than intended, stating that the current season had ended even though it was still in progress.
  

[h2]SOCIAL[/h2]
[h3]GENERAL[/h3]

• Fixed a rare issue that prevented players from turning off their PvP flag.
  

[h2]AUDIO[/h2]

• Lowered the amount of echo when an NPC spoke within a small interior space.
  

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

Greetings, Adventurers!

The PTR is crucial for finalizing releases, but some upcoming content remains secret. Should we surprise players in exchange for less bug tests? The answer can vary, but QA always makes the final call on if a release is ready to go live. Check out the video below to learn more about the challenges behind quality assurance and then read on for an in-depth look at the journey of a patch note.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]THE JOURNEY OF A PATCH NOTE[/h2]
QA Manager Michael Corpora went on to walk us through the path of a bug:

“On December 6, 2022, we pushed the Winter Festival update to live servers. The Winter Convergence world event was core to this release. This was also the first world event to repeat since the New World launch. As such, we already documented and updated a test plan to account for any changes. For example, additional quests were added to engage new and returning players. When finalizing the content, we verified changes with characters that had participated in the original event along with new characters. Defects were identified and resolved, and then those fixes were verified in builds leading up to the release.“



“However, following the release we received player reports that the first 3 Winter Convergence quests were not accessible for some players. After looking through all of the reports, our investigation found that quest completion data for unrelated main story quests had been reused in the update for these new quests. This particular scenario was outside of the test coverage for the Winter Convergence update.”

“Once identified, we created characters with this quest completion data to verify that they were not offered the new quests. The next step was to implement a fix and create test scenarios to verify that both the Winter Convergence quests and the main story quests functioned correctly for all characters, including those who had already participated in the live event. This fix was then merged into a patch.”



“We ran all test scenarios again to verify the fix in the actual build before it went live. Once approved, the patch was released to players on December 8, 2022.“

What’s something that you can’t wait to see on the PTR? Let us know on Discord, Reddit, or the YouTube comments section. Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.

Greetings, Adventurers!

Immortality comes at a cost. Aeternum is infested with lethal enemies ranging from the Ancients to the Angry Earth. Some Adventurers lose their will and become one of the Lost, while others give into the seductive whispers of power that foster Corruption. Even maintaining humanity can mean fending off a seemingly endless onslaught from the Varangian Knights. No one is safe on the Eternal Isle, but there’s still hope.

Join the Narrative Team for an in-depth analysis of the enemy families in the video below:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Varangian Knights[/h2]
We caught up with Narrative Designer Aaron de Orive to explore another enemy family—the Varangian Knights.

“When conceiving of a human enemy faction, the idea of an order of villainous knights was discussed. Ultimately we decided on the Rus’ Varangians, who were Norsemen that settled in Eastern Europe. We wanted these fierce warriors to have connections to King Artorius, first as enemies and then as uneasy allies. We also wanted their leader to be an impressive figure, someone as formidable as Artorius himself. That’s how the mighty Warlord Varik came to be.”



“Varik was a founding member of the legendary Knights of the Round Table, and he and his warriors traveled to Aeternum with Artorius in his quest for the mystical land of Avalon. Varik fought by Artorius’s side against the Corrupted Myrddin during the Wars of Crimson Madness. When the forces of Corruption seemed on the verge of victory, Varik and his Varangians retreated into uncharted areas of Aeternum, and there established a new Varangian stronghold.”



“Known as ‘The Hammer’ for the strength of his blows, Varik is a warrior without equal. His goal is to unite all of Aeternum under his banner, but in order to accomplish this, he seeks the secrets of Myrddin’s magic. Despite having resulted in the wise magician becoming the Crimson Sorcerer, Varik believes that mastering Aeternum’s power is the only way to ensure complete control over the island. And he is determined to do so regardless of the cost.“



Which enemy family would you like to know more about? If there was an enemy family that you could ally yourself to, or manifest elements of, which would it be? Let us know on Discord, Reddit, or the YouTube comments section. Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.