New World's latest Forged in Aeternum video highlights its player economy and how the devs both monitor its health and take action to fix things when they identify an issue. Also joining in on the discussion is a good boy dog, which the devs jokingly foreshadow as the coming of pets in Aeternum.
First off, no, the foreshadowing doesn't actually mean pets will finally make an appearance in New World. But one can hope, especially as the team rewrote the lore with Rise of the Angry Earth to explain mounts, specifically horses, and how they finally came to the Eternal Isle.
But the meat and potatoes of the video highlight the player economy, something that you can make the argument has seen some issues over the two years the dev team has been working on it live. Multiple bugs throughout the years have seen player trading completely halted, forcing the developers to grind everything to a halt to fix dupes and more.
However, the New World developers look at a high-level brief of the economy, tackling everything from the wealth disparity in New World right down to the impacts the latest expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, has had on the economy.
In fact, according to Senior Systems Designer Tony Morton, wealth disparity is one of the bigger issues the team faces. Morton describes a situation that real-world economists face, with a growing wealth gap, upward trending prices as a result, and inflation seeping into Aeternum. So the goal, according to Morton, is to help keep that gap smaller by looking at and tweaking various ways that wealth is distributed to players, especially when comparing those no-lifers who play hours and hours each day versus those who maybe have more limited time to log in.
"So we take a look at how wealth is being distributed, you know? Do we need to do thins like distribute wealth more on a weekly basis so you don't need to log in every day? But then there's still a source of wealth for people who do want to play the game for 10 or 15 hours a day. And so there's like a lot of complex problems trying to balance the two because what we want to do is we want somebody who only has a couple of hours a week to play to feel like their time is valued. And then, we also want to make sure that somebody who plays the game an absolute ton still feels like their time is valued, but in doing so, not making it so they're so far different that their experiences in the game are just equally opposite."
New World's Systems Designer Joel Clift talks about some of the in-house tools the team has to monitor gold flow and gold faucets within the MMO, and use it to help manage inflation. He also talks about the team's considerations when planning new content, specifically seasonal rewards, and items that get added to the game with updates.
When making that item, the team looks at its long-term goals, setting an average price range for what they think the item will be worth, the balance the item brings to the table, and more. The ideal situation is an item that will serve a player's purpose for a long time, giving examples of good items, such as the new resources from the expansion, versus a bad item ("Flame Core, my fault," according to Clift).
It's an interesting discussion and not one that gets enough real information made available to players across MMOs. Player economies are vital to an MMORPG feeling healthy, so to hear the team talk about how they approach building and maintaining one - especially given the issues they've faced in their short period of live ops versus longer-running MMOs, is pretty insightful.
As someone who is currently replaying the entirety of New World for a review, I can say that the economy feels improved versus the initial launch period. I am flush with gold from just killing mobs and completing quests, whereas before, I felt like I needed to stand in Everfall's settlement, asking for a handout to afford that next cut gem to slot into my armor.
