New World began rolling out new servers across all regions a couple of days back to diminish the long queues of players which has been plaguing the game as of late. However, the server transfers had to be suspended shortly afterwards because of the discovery of a major game-breaking exploit.
In an official update from earlier today, developer Amazon Game Studios acknowledged that the New World server transfers birthed a technical issue where characters were left in an “invalid save state” or were basically unable to transfer properly to the intended new server.
This state of limbo allowed players to abuse an exploit where they could duplicate their gold and items. Amazon Game Studios noted that its database keeps a log of all in-game transactions and hence, characters with duplicated loot will not remain hidden for too long. The developer will now be reviewing all such characters and remove their duplicated gold and items, while handing out bans to players who abused the exploit knowingly.
“Some players among this small set transferred gold or items while their character was affected,” said Amazon Game Studios. “All of these transactions are logged in our database. We are reviewing them now and any players found deliberately using this condition to gain advantage will be banned for exploiting. We will also remove items or gold received where appropriate.”
Amazon Game Studios has transferred around 150,000 players since the New World server transfers went live. The players affected by the save-state bug account for a small number. The developer will resume server transfers once it can prevent the bug from impacting players again, and will issue an announcement ahead of time.
New World was released last month on PC to critical acclaim. The game takes place in the mid-seventeenth century and tasks players to colonize an island modelled after the Americas. The game follows a purchase-only-once model and is devoid of any subscription fees. There are however microtransactions for cosmetic needs.
