Amazon delays its MMO due to coronavirus lockdown

[Syaoran]

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Amazon Game Studios is delaying its massively multiplayer online game New World to August, according to a post on the game’s website. The studio cites the unexpected challenges of developing an MMO as a remote team while self-isolating due to the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Previously, Amazon planned to release New World on Windows PC in May.

“We have made the hard decision to delay the release of New World until August 25, 2020 and the start of Closed Beta to July,” the developer wrote in a blog post. “Like most of you, our entire team has been sequestered as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. While we are still making great progress, developing an ambitious MMO like New World remotely has introduced some challenges. We want to make sure that we have the time needed to make New World the very best it can be for our players. As a result, we’ve chosen to delay the game’s release in order to reach our quality bar as we work remotely for the foreseeable future.”

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The Alpha for New World will remain open as development continues, and Amazon is promising more information and updates between now and the August launch.

Source: https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/9/21215503/amazon-mmo-new-world-delayed-coronavirus
https://www.ign.com/articles/new-world-amazon-mmo-delayed-august

 

First of all, Amazon is making an MMO?! When was this first announced? I literally just heard about New World today when I came across this news.

Saw the trailer while making this post, I remember now.

[TempestCatto]

Knowing Amazon, it might actually be decent. Their Amazon Basics are usually good quality products. This one may surprise us all.

[PlayStation 2]

I smell a fair bit of irony with the game's title.

[Taf the Ghost]

31 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

I smell a fair bit of irony with the game's title.

Yeah, some inadvertent bad timing.

 

For those that don't get the reference, the connection of the continents brought a massive way of death from disease in the Americas, when it happened. Though it was mostly the Fur Trade that caused it, leading to a situation where much of North America was depopulated before the European Colonization period happened. (Granted, the areas that were worst affected also had the disadvantage of massive droughts in the Americas in the early 1500s.)

[DildorTheDecent]

The perfect time to deploy their new game and they can't.

 

F

[ARikozuM]

All for the low low price of YOUR SOULS*!!!

 

* and humanity

[MageTank]

Seems weird to delay an MMO that was set to launch soon (closed beta this month, full release next month) due to a virus that only started delaying production a month or two ago. Does this mean the game was nowhere near finished for the original release date? Or are they pushing it back due to current staffing issues (lack of moderators, server administration team unavailable, etc)?

 

I have no idea how game development works, but it just seems odd to not have something close to a finished product within a couple months of the intended release. I hope this doesn't reflect poorly on the polish in-game when it's actually out.

[ThePD]

5 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Seems weird to delay an MMO that was set to launch soon (closed beta this month, full release next month) due to a virus that only started delaying production a month or two ago. Does this mean the game was nowhere near finished for the original release date? Or are they pushing it back due to current staffing issues (lack of moderators, server administration team unavailable, etc)?

 

I have no idea how game development works, but it just seems odd to not have something close to a finished product within a couple months of the intended release. I hope this doesn't reflect poorly on the polish in-game when it's actually out.

Whatever the reasons may be for the delay. I would rather have a completed product that is delayed than a rushed mess. 

[MageTank]

2 minutes ago, ThePD said:

Whatever the reasons may be for the delay. I would rather have a completed product that is delayed than a rushed mess. 

Absolutely. I am sure everyone here has been burned on a rushed product launch before. My most recent example was my return to Archeage for the Archeage Unchained launch, only to be unable to enter the login servers for nearly a full week. All sorts of quest balancing issues that broke the in-game economy, the devs completely disabling character creation on servers for long periods of time, preventing friends from playing together. It was an absolute mess.

 

Here's to hoping Amazon's team is using this time wisely, as the game looks very promising so far.

[Doobeedoo]

Yeah... not sure how this one will go...

Anyway...

WoW Classic and Shadowlands expansion for me, so there's that.

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

Seems weird to delay an MMO that was set to launch soon (closed beta this month, full release next month) due to a virus that only started delaying production a month or two ago. Does this mean the game was nowhere near finished for the original release date? Or are they pushing it back due to current staffing issues (lack of moderators, server administration team unavailable, etc)?

 

I have no idea how game development works, but it just seems odd to not have something close to a finished product within a couple months of the intended release. I hope this doesn't reflect poorly on the polish in-game when it's actually out.

Only way these few months in this timeframe would be somehow meaningful would be that they have just murderous crunch which now has been put on hold or at least hindered. If the game wasn't finished for next months "launch", it won't be a lot better in the August if the reason was that it wasn't good enough. For this kind of delay it is well known before that the game won't make the launch months before (usually development time is few years), just like Cyberpunk 2077 delay was announced in the last year, they well knew it wasn't going to make it for the launch or it could have with a deadly crunch (that doesn't profit anyone) but the right call was to delay the launch.

 

If the real reason was the COVID-19 there is huge problems in the game currently. And with huge, I mean really huge game breaking bugs and missing works that need all hands on deck to be fixed (think it like a car having a design error in it's body, you would need to make changes to everything to fix it and involve almost every engineer and designer to make the changes, in comparison to just having a problem with mirror mounting that can be fixed without involving everyone). It can be that the Amazon Lumberyard-engine is worse than what I have heard (haven't heard a lot of good about it) and it doesn't even have remote development features that are kind of standard in their competitors (Unity and Unreal) and because of that devs can't work from their homes but considering how much money Amazon has invested into it, it would be odd that it wouldn't have remote development features.

 

Possibility is that they don't have enough running staff (server monkeys, moderators etc.) to launch the game due to the pandemic but I kind of doubt that because Amazon isn't a small company in server business (IIRC second largest after Google) and we haven't heard that they would be short handed because the pandemic.

[The King of the Undead]

I had never heard of this until now.

[vetali]

2 hours ago, MageTank said:

Seems weird to delay an MMO that was set to launch soon (closed beta this month, full release next month) due to a virus that only started delaying production a month or two ago. Does this mean the game was nowhere near finished for the original release date? Or are they pushing it back due to current staffing issues (lack of moderators, server administration team unavailable, etc)?

 

I have no idea how game development works, but it just seems odd to not have something close to a finished product within a couple months of the intended release. I hope this doesn't reflect poorly on the polish in-game when it's actually out.

Regardless of the state of the game... in these days you need to hit a home run, hole in one, touch down, and goal all simultaneously on the launch. Especially for MMOs. All it takes is one twitch clip going viral or a youtube compilation posted of launch day issues and people totally write off your game. Its hard to pull that off when most, if not all your workforce is working at home. Its better to continue polishing the game if your workforce is working from home.

[Syaoran]

12 hours ago, ThePD said:

I would rather have a completed product that is delayed than a rushed mess. 

Case in point, Kingdom Hearts 3.