- Amazon's new game New World is plagued by excruciating login times, caused by AFK players
- The studio is going to implement harsher methods to combat this
- The changes should drastically improve login times
Amazon’s new MMORPG New World is going to be implementing new features and harsher measures to detect and punish AFK players.
Excruciatingly Long Login Queues and What Causes Them
With the long-anticipated MMO launching just a few days ago, players are eager to explore what Amazon’s New World has to offer. However, this raises the issue of very long log-in queues, with waiting times being absurdly long, sometimes reaching even to several hours. What is even more frustrating for players is that, since the game is new and still has some kinks that need ironing out, players will spend hours waiting in line to log in, only to be greeted by a bug, and then have to redo the entire waiting procedure.
With such long waiting times and somewhat unstable and overpopulated servers, it is no wonder players want to stay AFK logged in, just to save themselves hours next time they want to play. This leads to a feedback loop of players who wait long hours, then stay in the servers, even when not playing, which causes even greater queues, which in turn makes even more players stay AFK once they're in the server.
What New Features to Prevent AFK Will There Be?
Some players have tried circumventing the previous AFK countermeasures by running into walls or setting up time-based macros to perform various actions to keep them in the server. However, soon there will not be enough.
HardcoreHenry, community manager for New World, announced in a post on the New Worlds forum to players that the team intends to crack down on the AFK players problem by implementing a new kick system, which should detect AFK players and kick them from the server if they have been inactive for too long. He did not, however, explain in detail how the new feature will work.
What is known so far is that players who are to be punished for AFK-ing too long will simply be kicked to the main menu like the AFK timer was working as normal until now. If this continues for many instances, the player will receive harsher penalties, although the post does not go into detail as to what that will mean.
The new countermeasures will not come into effect all at once but will be rolled out over a period of time, so the results will not be immediate, but it is hoped that they will finally fix the game’s excruciatingly long login times.
