Winter Convergence Gets Delayed in New World
All that excitement, for nothing
With the Winter holidays coming, most MMOs would have or have already started their holiday events. Amazon did plan a whole winter event for New World, but somehow it didn’t go live on the expected release date. Sure, life goes on and players keep on farming their New World gold, resources, or gear. However, it’s one thing to promise something and then another to not deliver on time and this has been happening with regularity since the game’s launch.
The event will eventually come, though how much the players will enjoy it is another matter entirely.
The Winter Convergence
It would bring winter to Aeternum, blanketing the land with snow. It would bring with it fresh tasks to do and break up the daily grind for players. As the Aurora Borealis glows above, the Winter Wanderer, also called the Yeti, comes to Aeternum. The Winter Convergence is a time of conflict for the Yeti, as his positive and negative sides wage war against each other.
Players can take a side and help out the Yeti, by partaking in several activities. There’s a new questline to complete, tree decorations to improve, presents to find, and Gleamite to collect. These activities will give the player event reputation and tokens. You’ll want the former to unlock more items for sale in the event shops, and the latter so you could buy those same items.
Players join the event by going to one of the 4 Winter Villages. Find the Yeti there and talk to him so you can start collecting tokens and reputation for their New World account. These villages are also where event shops may be found. Be sure to collect all the tokens you need for the cosmetics and New World items you want!
Aside from these activities and locations, new points of interest will also appear, called ‘Ice Caves’. These are locations where the Yeti’s power coalesces and makes the snowfall. As concentrations of the Yeti’s wintry power, these caves almost look like freezing wastelands. Should things go wrong during the Convergence Festival, the rest of Aeternum might look like these Ice Caves. Even if the Winter Warrior is defeated, these caves will remain as is, like scars on the land.
Lastly, the event offers the chance for players to gain Diamond Gypsum which can be used to bump up the Expertise of the player. Level 60 players can interact with Trees of Light.
So with the event, players would’ve been able to see a wintry (not really a) wonderland, filled with new tasks they can do. It could’ve given max-level players something to do other than what they do every day for the past week.
The Delay
It was December 14th, and everybody was expecting some news about maintenance, downtime, or a patch dropping. However, everything was quiet. The game and the players went on as usual. It’s the evening, and there’s still no word. Some players ask each other, ‘Shouldn’t there be an event by now?’
They only find out in the evening that the patch has been delayed. Official posts about the event’s release date had been edited to remove the date. A forum post also appeared, saying that the Winter Convergence event isn’t coming.
Of course, this led to a group of noisy players doing what they do best, making noise and complaining. “Why did they remove the dates?”, “Why is there no explanation?”, “When can we expect the event?” are some of their cries.
Amazon did drop the ball, as a brief explanation of:
“We’re sorry, but due to some unforeseen problems, the Winter Convergence event will not be going live today, more information will come on the December Monthly Update announcement.”
Along with a confirmation that they are working on it, that would have sufficed.
What they just did left players feeling out of the loop and betrayed. All they said was “We will not be releasing this update today but stay tuned for the December Monthly Update announcement!” That doesn’t give players anything. Either way, complainers would make noise, but more understanding would’ve come from the former message than the latter.
At any rate, the event will be delayed for a little while. Hopefully, the Monthly announcement would clear things up and give players some peace of mind. It wouldn’t do for this event to fall through, as New World has been reeling from all kinds of problems and bugs.
To wit, it has gone through server congestion, servers that time-traveled, bug and dupe exploits, closures of the economy, and now a delayed event. The dupe exploits got even trickier with the portion of the player base who sell and buy New World gold. There’s only so much players can take, even the most loyal ones. It’sone saving grace is its pay once, play forever model. If it were a subscription, things would’ve gone a lot worse.
All we can do is wait patiently for an explanation and some consolation. It might actually come to the point where New World players will celebrate Christmas in the next year. A precedent for this is FFXIV’s All Saints’ Wake (their Halloween event) being held in February 2022. Otherwise, canceling it altogether might actually make the player population quit (though that’s the worst-case scenario). Amazon has to tread carefully, as they’ve been crossing increasingly thinner ice.
