New World has been out for just a couple of weeks, but it has faced many problems. Long wait times, GPUs bricking, and players being banned without reason are just a few, but now there seem to be even more problems for people who finally get into the game. Players have begun to scam each other out of large sums of gold, the in-game currency.
Stories have started to emerge on the New World subreddit of entire factions collapsing due to the actions of a few players.
I think Heracleion server’s Syndicate faction just got the speedrunning record for New World’s faction shattering drama. Just 7 days.
Paradoggs, New World player
Within the game, players are divided into three factions at perpetual war with one another for control of different zones. Players have the option to create companies – New World’s name for guilds – that serve to represent their faction and face off against other companies for direct control of their settlements and the surrounding countryside.
The company that owns a territory will profit from the taxes earned by players or using its crafting stations, whereas companies without land will have to rely on donations from its members. The linchpin in all this is that companies have to operate on a high level of trust, as nothing stops company leadership from running off with all the gold accumulated.
Paradoggs, the Redditor who posted this news on the subreddit, explains how on Heracleion, one of New World’s servers, he was part of a company that recently lost a war with another faction. As they no longer had any territory, the Paradoggs’ company leader began to beg people to donate all their gold so the company could buy the deed to the last remaining unclaimed zone on the server.
This would be the company’s last shot at owning any land. Paradoggs said that 200 players donated 60,000 gold in total to the company coffers – a huge sum in-game. That was when the company leader emptied out the treasury into their character’s own wallet and disappeared.
Paradoggs says that the leader and their friends started to create new characters and transfer the money between themselves, so they could start fresh with no one knowing who they were. The sudden scam has supposedly sent the entire Heracleion Syndicate faction into chaos.
The comments on the Reddit thread soon filled out with stories from other players experiencing the same tactic. It seems all across New World servers, company leaders are emptying out the guild treasury and then defecting to the opposing faction. At the same time, other companies seem to be collapsing due to interpersonal drama.
While this has no doubt left many players frustrated and broke (in-game), it’s still exciting to see this new dimension to player interaction. It adds a new layer of risk to joining factions and augments the existing faction PVP system with real-world grudges. Also, the scam is more or less easy to avoid. If you are part of a faction in New World begging you to donate gold to the treasury, just say you’re already broke.
About New World
New World is an upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by Amazon Games set to be released on August 31, 2021. The game was previously scheduled to release in May 2020 but was delayed to its current date.
Set in the mid-1600s, players colonize a fictional land known as Aeternum Island, modeled after North and South Americas in the Atlantic Ocean. The game will be using a buy-to-play business model, meaning there will be no monthly subscription fee.
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