Amazon Games finally released early access to their eagerly anticipated MMORPG New World today, but it seems their servers couldn’t quite handle the overwhelming demand.
This is only the early access version of New World and it’s only available to those that pre-ordered it, and the game’s access has been staggered throughout differing timezones — so it’s a little disappointing (but perhaps not overly surprising) that the game already has a few problems.
Despite the fact this is a release by Amazon, we are willing to cut them a little bit of slack in what is their first foray into the world of publishing games.
If you’re trying to log on to New World right now, you’ll probably experience some issues.
Every player trying to access will currently be hit with New World server queues, with estimated times for being allowed to enter the game varying between 30 minutes and 3 hours.
How do you fix the New World server issues?
Unfortunately the servers are completely overloaded and at this time there isn’t a way to jump the queue if you’re looking to fix the long wait time. However, there are a few things you can do before you join to get the ball rolling.
When opening the game, you’ll be able to choose your world and create your first character. It’s important to remember that you can’t change the world you’re in with this character and you only get two character slots, so choose the world wisely if you’re looking to play with friends.
Before you get to customize your character you will watch a video clip that sets the scene for the plot of the game. Honestly, we’re pretty impressed with the quality of the graphics and the initial setting of the storyline — it will make you extremely excited to play the game. This unfortunately makes the server issues more annoying!
You also can’t change the appearance of your character after you’ve locked everything in, so make sure your character’s basic appearance looks how you’ll want it to look in the following months or even years.
After you’ve confirmed your character’s appearance, complete with scars, tattoos and more, you’ll watch another video clip where you’re on a boat. But what comes next? Well…
New World black screen problem
Many people, after watching the video clip on a boat, will be hit with a black screen that doesn’t seem to disappear. This happened to me and at first I thought my PC had crashed.
How do you fix the black screen on New World?
Fortunately, all you have to do is wait.
I waited for between 1-2 minutes and eventually I was met with an estimated login time to my server and my position in the queue. So, erm…more waiting now, I guess.
Some people won’t have the black screen issue and instead will be met with the server time immediately, so fingers crossed you don’t have any issues — but ultimately you will still have to wait.
What can you do instead? Well, I’ll probably open up Twitch and be jealous of the people already playing…what about you?
New World estimated time isn’t going down
Another common issue that players are experiencing is that the estimated time on the ‘waiting to login’ page doesn’t seem to be decreasing.
Again, I had (and have right now whilst writing this) the same issue.
My estimated time started at 30 minutes and over the course of writing this post I’ve gone from position 1440 in the queue down to 962, and my estimated time left is still 30 minutes.
Whilst this is a little frustrating, it did say before I joined the server that there was an estimated 1 hour wait time. When I saw it said 30 minutes, I was a little surprised but now I realize it might not have been accurate — or close to it either.
Every now and again the timer moves down to 29 minutes and then back to 30 minutes again, but that’s about as much excitement as I’ve had on the game so far.
I’ll report back when I make it into the New World, wish me luck!
Update:
Proof! The counter does drop below 29 minutes. I always believed in you, Jeff Bezos.
It seems the counter will say either 30 minutes or 29 minutes even if your wait is over half an hour. But as soon as it drops to 28 minutes or less, you might be in luck in terms of the timer actually being accurate.
All servers are down
Another day, another issue with servers. This time, it appears to be all of them.
What can you do to get around this? Well, an option appears to create a new character in a new world, but unfortunately this doesn’t work.
It seems all we can do is be patient at this point, but there is also the New World server status tool to tell us which servers are running.
From my many, many refreshes of this page, it seems that they’re slowly beginning to open servers up again now, starting in Asia-Pacific Southeast.
