Steam community post by NW dev., talking about MTX. I honestly think they have good intentions and I fall under the category who believes MTX is a part of everything going forward. How heavy handed and meta cash shop items become is up to them and will make or break the experience. As far i'm concerned Rich Lawrence and crew seem to be walking the talk.
Some questions have come up recently from our Alpha patch notes discussing an in-game storefront. Our plan in having a store is to create an outlet for players who find enough value in store items that they are happy to purchase them. Our plan is not, and never will be, to create a feeling that...
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A Message from Rich Lawrence, Studio Director
Some questions have come up recently from our Alpha patch notes discussing an in-game storefront. Our plan in having a store is to create an outlet for players who find enough value in store items that they are happy to purchase them. Our plan is not, and never will be, to create a feeling that store items are necessary to enjoy the game. All players will be able to play the full game experience we ship without having to make store purchases.
All store items at launch will be exclusively cosmetic in nature. We are introducing the storefront in Alpha in order to test these items and their value. No selections in the store or their indicated cost (during testing there is no real cost in any case) is final. Our purpose is quality assurance and gathering player feedback, so please share your thoughts once the system is introduced. The testing audience will see each type of item we are considering and have an opportunity to provide feedback before they are introduced to the live game.
Looking towards the future, we will also test ideas on how to offer players quality of life items for mechanics like rested XP and fast travel, both obtainable in-game and purchasable in the store. The timing of release for these types of items will depend on how players progress in the months after launch. The more players who are able to experience all of our exciting end-game content and game modes, the healthier the overall game experience will be for all players.
Our goal with all items of any type is that they not offer an advantage that imbalances the game. We understand that this line is based on player interpretation, so we ask for your patience while we test in Alpha and listen to your feedback.
For transparency on future plans, we are also contemplating, but have not finalized, a "battle pass" style program, that would combine store items on a periodic basis. This will also be tested ahead of time to ensure it provides strong value without disrupting gameplay for those not participating. Much further along there is also the possibility of optional expansions, which would have a separate cost.
- Rich Lawrence, Studio Director
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A storefront of optional cosmetics and rested xp boosts is not an aggressive monetization tactic and when paired with a $40 upfront price don't begin to touch on the various ways games monetize or the more predatory practices you can find out there like paywalls, cooldown timers, etc.
I understand folks have fears, that these things can be a gateway to abuse but we're committed to ensuring fairness and value in our shop.
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There are a few reasons people are super upset.
In part, you are correct, it is because they are excited about New World and passion turns to fury in a flash. Another part of it is that the financial component to the games business is unclear to customers and has been since the variety of ways to fund game development and support have changed and expanded, leaving a lot of customers confused and frustrated. There are a lot of game models and an even wider variety of payment models.
When New World was a smaller game, we picked what we felt was a very fair, low market price that allowed the most number of players to enjoy the game as possible. As it became larger in scope we didn’t want to increase the price, so we looked for alternate, optional ways for players to help support its scope and to continue our pace of introducing new content in live.
Video games are in the business of joy. Sometimes the business stuff isn't very fun to talk about. But launch is just the beginning for New World and we want this to be a game folks will love for a long time, this means continuous support and development post launch. This also mean generating funding beyond the $40 one time purchase.
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I encourage you to do the homework yourself, read all our publicly available patchnotes. You will see that in the XP section of the May release you'll see we made progression easier, not harder.
https://www.newworld.com/en-us/may-alpha-update
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I think we are being very cautious about making forever statements. Or rushing to commit to things without deeply understanding the long term implications of those commitments.
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Yes, months after release we may be adding rested XP boosts to our store. At launch, and for months following we will only be selling cosmetics but we want to be clear that we may sell rested xp boosts in the future.
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I encourage you to do the homework and actually review all of our patchnotes month to month. For example, in May you'll see that actually we were rebalancing all of our XP because we were making progression easier in-game. Not harder.
https://www.newworld.com/en-us/may-alpha-update
"XP & LEVELING
We’ve adjusted our leveling curves and rest experience to speed up leveling for casual players and to introduce new ways of gaining XP.
The XP per level curve has been adjusted to increase the rewards of doing quests lower than your level.
XP for killing monsters has been adjusted.
Gold- and silver-border monsters now grant more XP when killed.
Expedition quests now grant significantly more XP.
Territory standing levels now grant experience when acquired.
The number of XP bonus cards that a territory can grant when leveling up has been limited and capped to provide a maximum bonus of 10.3%.
Faction missions have had their experience rebalanced to match the new leveling curve.
Added a new daily bonus of 200% XP for the first 3 faction missions completed.
Unique POI now grant more experience when revealed.
Gathering trade skills now grant experience per level gained.
Smelting trade skills now grant experience per level gained.
Crafting trade skills now grant experience per level gained.
Journal pages now give increasing experience based on the total number found.
REST XP
Reduced wait time before beginning to generate rest XP from 12h to 8h.
Raised the cap for total rest XP from 100% of a level to 150% of a level.
Decreased the rate at which rest XP is gained from 2% per hour to 1% per hour.
Rest XP now works on all sources of XP."
We are in Alpha development and have completed the implementation of the majority of our features and content. We are now digging into balancing and tuning. This work must happen after we are content and feature complete for launch. It is unrelated to our storefront. Digging through all of our patchnotes will tell a more nuanced story of the changes we have been making since October.
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We will not be selling resources in the New World shop. Our plans are for cosmetics and, several months after launch, rested XP boosts.
I think there are probably large legal and economic complexities to your other suggestions that I wouldn't know how to unpack.
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It doesn’t contradict what I am saying. We will be selling rested XP boosts several months after the game launches. These will be obtainable in game as well. We do not believe this is a Pay2Win item.