New World will be getting just a bit more musical soon, as the Summer Medleyfaire update arrives tomorrow. The update not only begins the Summer Medleyfaire event and introduces a number of instruments to the game, it also adds the Barnacles & Black Powder Expedition, as well as several significant balance changes.
Highlight some music with the Summer Medleyfaire event, with quests that earn you new pages and some starter instruments. There are five additional instruments added to the game in this update and 31 songs you can collect to learn to play solo or in a group. These instruments are the guitar, mandolin, upright bass, drums, and Azoth flute. You can play alone or in a group of up to five people, and better performances get better Rewards, including trade skill XP and buffs. Spectators will also get buffed and can tip the players by tossing some coins. Get more songs by salvaging pages all throughout Aeternum.
Barnacles & Black Powder will open one week after this update arrives, so If all goes as planned this will unlock on August 4th. This Expedition brings Admiral Blackpowder and his crew, new quests, and new loot. Two weeks after its release, this Expedition will be mutated and there will be three new mutations joining the rotation.
Expeditions also get a round of changes this update, including the promised Expedition Group Finder and the removal of Tuning Orbs. There’s also some loot rebalancing, with Expedition bosses to drop less gold, and the difference moved to darkness breaches and Elite Chests. The new resource, Materia, will drop from bosses and be salvageable from Expedition drops, and you’ll be able to use it to craft the drops you want and reduce dependence on randomness.
This major update covers so much of the game that it is no surprise that it was even split into two on the PTR for better testing. There are PvP Arena tweaks, a rebalance of Perks, improvements to loot drops to better serve a character over time, bonuses, the introduction of Perfect Salvages, and bonuses there, trade skill balance changes, and so much more.
You can read the full notes for the Summer update over at New World.