• New World: Amazon Addresses Character Transfers, Economy, and Other Community Complaints

    Amazon Games has provided its New World community with an update on many of the features in the game that have experienced issues including character transfers, the game's economy, and much more.

    In a developer blog post published to the game's forums, a community manager for New World explained that the team had been working hard to investigate several problems with the MMO before providing an update to fans on the issues that it believes are most critical to the community.

    Following recent reports that New World has been suffering from a deflationary currency crisis, the blog post spoke further about the current state of the game's economy and updated fans on what changes the development team would be making going forward.

    "From a data standpoint, the economy is performing within acceptable levels," explains the post. "All servers are creating more money than is being removed, and by a good margin. However, the economy is tighter at the end-game currently. When we look at surplus income generated by level, it’s very high in the 1-35 level range, decent in the 40-59 range, and gets narrow at 60. This means that as more players get to level 60, this will start to put more pressure on the economy."

    With that in mind, the developer says that it has made two big changes that will help the game's economy going forward. The first of these came in the form of fixing a bug that affected New World's Azoth staff and prevented players from being able to complete some of the end-game features that generated reasonable levels of gold. The second, and more recent change, comes with reintroducing New World's Outpost Rush. This large-scale 20 v 20 PvP experience is available to players at level 60 in the game and according to the developers should go a long way in helping end-game players to find a source of income.

    In addition to the changes listed above, the studio has announced further tweaks that it is making in a bid to strengthen the in-game economy. Among a number of other factors, these included extending New World's housing tax period from 5 to 7 days and linking trading posts, a change that the studio says will help to bolster the economy in less traveled territories across the game.

    Economy aside, the studio also spoke further about the game's full server issues and problems with character transfers. Since its initial release, the developer has made multiple efforts to resolve server issues and allow players the ability to play with their pre-established friends by transferring their characters between servers in the game.

    "It is important to us that everyone have the opportunity to choose which server they are playing on," the developer blog reads. "By the time you are reading this, character transfers will have been re-enabled and most players should be able to move their characters."

    "We will continue to monitor your feedback after this wave of Character Transfers is complete and offer additional Transfers if needed. We are also working on region-to-region Character Transfers, but it is difficult to solve and will take time."

    To avoid further issues in the future, the studio says that it is monitoring the number of active users within the game's servers to ensure that its 'Full Server Status' continues to be accurate. In addition, the statement also confirmed that going forward, players will receive a 24 hour notice period before a server is marked as full meaning that both existing and new players would have more information to go by before finding out that a server couldn't be joined.

    This article has touched upon several of the topics discussed in the developer's blog post. However, the full blog contained information on a range of further issues including property taxes, faction tokens, and much, much more. For more from New World, make sure to check out our dedicated IGN page for the game, which includes a number of helpful tips and guides for the MMO.

    Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

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    Marvel’s Avengers Finally Gets a Release Date for Spider-Man

    After months and months of waiting, further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Spider-Man is finally coming to Marvel's Avengers on November 30, exclusively for PlayStation players.

    Spider-Man is releasing as part of the Spider-Man: With Great Power Hero Event in Marvel's Avengers, which will tell the story of Spider-Man through unlockable challenges.

    Surprisingly, Square-Enix made the release date announcement as only a small part of its broader content roadmap update published Thursday.

    In Spider-Man's story mode, Peter Parker discovers that A.I.M. plans to acquire tech that would make their robot army invincible, prompting Spidey to join forces with Ms. Marvel and Black Widow, who remain unaware of his identity. One of Spider-Man's big conflicts throughout his journey will be whether to stay a solo superhero or to lend his strength to the Avengers Initiative.

    Spider-Man being a PlayStation exclusive stirred up a fair amount of controversy in the Marvel's Avengers player community, with some worrying he won't be a very substantial character since only a portion of players will have access to him. Marvel's Avengers coming to Game Pass for both Xbox and PC just last September, has only widened that gap.

    The November 30 update brings several new features for all players, thankfully. A new Klaw raid set after the events of War for Wakanda will have the Avengers returning to the Vibranium Mound to defeat Klaw once and for all.

    Here's what else to expect:

    • Crystal Dynamics is also increasing maximum player power levels from 150 to 175.
    • Gear recycling will let you recycle higher-powered gear to boost your current gear if you prefer to keep your current look.
    • Shipments: A new path for players to earn cosmetics and other items via gameplay. Shipments will cost 500 units (in-game currency) and pulls from a collection of in-game items, with a chance to contain an outfit that can't be acquired any other way. Thankfully, you can see what's in the shipment before purchasing it, and you're guaranteed to get a special outfit in every 100 Shipments. Crystal Dynamics says it'll be sharing more information about this feature in the future.
    • Per-hero weekly objectives: Rather than using only one hero per week to farm challenges, you can farm rewards with each hero now. Crystal Dynamics says it's exploring applying this change to other parts of Marvel's Avengers as well.

    We'll have to wait and see if Spider-Man truly shakes up the Marvel's Avengers community. For now, Square Enix had some less-than-kind words for the troubled games-as-a-service superhero adventure. The publisher called negative reception to the game a "disappointing outcome," the implication being that Crystal Dynamics' roots as a single-player game studio didn't mesh well enough with a games-as-a-service project.

    Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/friendly neighborhood freelancer for IGN.

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    Best Art and Coffee Table Books: Holiday Gift Guide 2021

    It's time to start shopping for loved ones this holiday season, and art books and coffee table books are a great idea to add to any video game fan's collections. From video game biographies about industry legends like Hideo Kojima and Satoru Iwata, to art books featuring franchises like Halo and Final Fantasy, there's no shortage of gift ideas for every gamer on your shopping list.

    The Top 3 Must-Have Video Game Book Gifts

    Final Fantasy VII superfans will enjoy the new Final Fantasy VII Remake: Material Ultimania book, which is full of art featuring Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, and more. For gamers who aren't into Final Fantasy, check out The Game Console 2.0: A Photographic History from Atari to Xbox. This book shows the evolution of video game consoles and controllers over the last 40 years, including Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo.

    Best Halo Book Gifts

    Halo Infinite is set to be one of the hottest games this holiday season, and Master Chief superfans will want to flip through the art of the game in The Art of Halo Infinite. The book comes in both standard and deluxe editions, coming from renowned video game book publisher Dark Horse Books.

    Best Video Game History Book Gifts

    For video game fans wanting to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes, there are plenty of books to choose from this holiday season. Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding fans can learn more about Hideo Kojima, the man behind Solid Snake's adventures. Or, Nintendo fans can reflect on the legacy of the late Satoru Iwata with Ask Iwata. There are also stories about retro games, the NES, and more.

    Best Novels for Pop Culture Fans Gifts

    Dune and Ready Player One have gone from books to major motion pictures. To help the Dune fan in your life see where it all began, take a look at the Dune Sage 3-book set, which tells the story of the first movie, and well beyond. And, video game fans will love the references in Ready Player One and the sequel, Ready Player Two.

    Best Video Game Coffee Table Book Gifts

    For fun books to flip through and leave on display for friends and family to see, check out our picks for the best video game coffee table books. There are great coffee table books for fans of The Witcher, Lord of the Rings, Tomb Raider, God of War, and more.

    Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

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    EA Believes That NFTs ‘Will Be an Important Part of the Future’ of Gaming

    EA's CEO has said that he believes that NFTs will be an important part of the games industry in the future.

    In an earnings call this week, EA CEO Andrew Wilson was asked about the company's stance on "play-to-earn" games and NFTs. "I think the play to earn or the NFT conversation is still really, really early," he said. But he went on to note "I do think it will be an important part of the future of our industry."

    "As a company, we have been leaders in the creation of digital content that has real collectible value in the embedding of that content as part of live services," he continued. "What we know about collection over time is the collectibility is far more valuable to the collector where the collected item has utility. And I think that in the context of the games that we create and the live services that we offer, collectible digital content is going to play a meaningful part in our future."

    He concluded by telling those on the call that they "should expect us to kind of think more innovatively and creatively about that on a go-forward basis."

    Those collections to which Wilson refers can easily include FIFA Ultimate Team, the game mode in which players collect cards from loot box-style systems. But it could easily be envisioned as working across games, such as NFTs for cosmetics in Apex Legends.

    NFTs and cryptocurrencies are currently a largely unregulated entity often exploited for scam purposes, and have been accused as having a huge negative impact on the environment due to the energy consumed during the electronic mining of currency. Steam has already banned blockchain games, but Ubisoft already has plans to create blockchain games with play-to-earn features. Reactions to NFT and crypto elements in games has been mixed; while the systems are popular in some areas of internet culture, a recent Dead by Daylight NFT experiment did not go down well with fans.

    Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

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    Total War: Warhammer 3 Release Date Announced, Coming to Game Pass for PC Day One

    Sega has officially announced the release date for Total War: Warhammer 3, and has also confirmed that the game will be coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC at launch.

    In an update to its website, Sega announced that Total War: Warhammer 3 will be released on February 17, 2022, and that it will be coming to Xbox Games Pass subscribers on day one.

    “It’s fantastic to finally put a release date on our epic third instalment,” said Creative Assembly's Chief Product Officer, Rob Bartholomew in the post. “And, in partnering with Xbox Game Pass, we’re able to bring the ruinous powers of Chaos to as many players as possible. May all serve within their glorious embrace.”

    News of the game's official release date comes after Creative Assembly previously told fans that it was delaying the launch of the game from late 2021 to early 2022. As part of its earlier announcement, the studio explained that this would allow the team to accomplish far more with the game prior to launch and avoid a situation where fans received a rushed version of the final product.

    For those not subscribed to Xbox Game Pass but still looking to pick up Total War: Warhammer 3, there are various ways to get your hands on the game. Aside from being able to pre-order it directly from Creative Assembly itself, fans will also be able to pick up a copy of Warhammer 3 at a number of third-party storefronts including Steam, the Microsoft Store, and the Epic Games Store.

    As part of the update, Sega also confirmed that the game would launch with an early adopter bonus. The Ogre Kingdoms Race pack will be available to anyone who buys the game in advance or purchases it during its first week after release.

    The pack adds the Ogre Kingdoms and their two legendary lords, Greasus Goldtooth & Skrag the Slaughterer, into the grand campaign – enabling players to "lead an army of colossal warriors and primeval monsters in search of plunder, gold, and meat for their insatiable bellies."

    While the Ogre Kingdoms early-adopter bonus does come free when purchased from retailers, Xbox Game Pass subscribers won't automatically gain access to the pack at launch. Instead, subscribers to the platform hoping to get their hands on the additional content will need to purchase it separately from the Microsoft Store.

    While Total War: Warhammer 3 finally makes the Ogre Kingdoms playable, they're arguably the least exciting of all the factions. The next game in the series adds Grand Cathay to the mix, an empire from Warhammer lore that has never been seen on the table top, never mind in a videogame. Opposing them and the Kislevs will be the forces of Chaos, including those that follow the god of change itself, Tzeentch. You can check them out in the trailer below:

    Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

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