New World's wealth transfer options are still disabled due to exploits
New World is off to a buggy start, and its latest obstacle has left its player base unable to trade and bleeding money. According to Amazon Games, "a small number of players" discovered an exploit that allowed item and gold duplication, and the developer has disabled "all forms of wealth transfers" while it works on a fix.
The exploit apparently stems from a handful of folks using packet manipulation, skirting around systems Amazon has in place for these activities, and forcing items and currency to duplicate. New World players that thought they'd found a get-rich-quick scheme now find themselves on the receiving end of a ban, and Amazon still hasn't restored some features of its in-game economy.
"We are still working on fixes for the exploits addressed in this notice," said Amazon via its official New World forum. "I hear you are frustrated and want to make sure that no one suffers in-game financial losses as a result from disabling wealth transfer methods. In the long term, if town maintenance is behind on a territory your company owns or if you are unable to afford your taxes do [sic] to this, we will provide a make good."
New World's promise to make good on issues spawned from the exploit and response comes after player reports of tax woes. Over on the subreddit, one user pointed out how they couldn't even pay the fees they owed, so their towns wound up downgrading automatically. Invasions have also left establishments in turmoil, as town owners can't rebuild and prepare for attacks after initial damages since they can't use money.
Amazon says there are still other ways to generate errors that result in increased cash flow, too. In that same forum post, New World developer Lane added, "With the transfer of coin disabled, it’s possible to generate an error in a town project improvement and get money returned that you didn’t spend - this gold will be removed during the upcoming maintenance before transfer is turned back on."
It's been 24 hours since Amazon first disabled ways to spend and make money, but in an MMO that relies so heavily on in-game currency to prepare for its PVP battles, the situation is getting a little rough. Turning the economy off has left some players struggling to arm their characters, so if you need ammunition, you're going to need to start crafting—and anyone with tax troubles will just have to wait for the game's mercy.
New World's team continues to relay their progress, and it's been an unfortunate pattern for those working on it since the game's early days. Kay, another developer on the New World forums, reassured players that this is not a leftover glitch from the beta. "I'm being sincere when I say it's not funny," said Kay. "We worked really hard to get those changes that addressed the exploits from Closed Beta, and for another issue to show up that looks exactly the same, negates our work completely."