New World Game Director Talks About Managing Post-launch Problems

Is it fair to call an MMORPG that peaked at nearly one million players at launch just under three months ago and still averages six figures "struggling"? That's the impression a lot of folks have about New World, which isn't exactly "dead" but also isn't likely doing as well as Amazon Games would like. The dev team has put in a lot of work to smooth over the game's rough edges, and as it nears its 90-day anniversary, Game Director Scot Lane was interviewed by PCGamesN, covering a number of topics -- but ultimately not saying much at all.

Post-launch has been a "learning experience" for the team, which shouldn't come as a surprise, seeing as how it often seems like the team has had no experience at all at managing a live game. "We appreciate their patience while we’ve been working through these launch issues," which have included multiple currency exploits and other problems that have received more headlines than the actual new content, which came out in November. He said that the team has worked "around the clock" to fix things, though we hope that isn't a veiled allusion to crunch.

As for the game's signature territory system, Lane said that the idea evolved from holding small settlements individually to the faction mechanics we know today. The future of the system will include new expeditions, quest types, and enemies. More options for low-level and solo players are also on the table.

Overall, it's a pretty by-the-books interview, without any huge surprises, but that seems par for the course for New World: decent enough on the surface, but once you dig a little bit, you find that there's not much there. That was my experience with the game, at least, and I'd wager that the hundreds of thousands who have moved on from the game feel about the same way.