Monday 11/10/2025 Post: Packers Lose and Eagles Win

 I am putting as much effort into this meme as the Packers put into their offense tonight.  Another embarrassing loss for this team.  Highest paid QB in the league by the way.

 

Acceptance At Last

 Hear ye, hear ye, let it be known across the land that I, Heartlessgamer, have come to peace with the New World end-of-development announcement. Not really, but I have a grief checklist to complete, and the last checkbox is acceptance. And if there is anything certain in life, it is death and taxes; and for MMORPG players, completing checklists.

 The acceptance stage of grief is all about exploring options, new plans, and moving on.

 Except I can't move on yet because New World dropped a bunch of new content in what we assume will be the last major patch. Multiple in-progress features were released to the game: daggers, the Reekwater revamp, global storage, and more. That means there are immediately new things to do and try in New World, and I owe it to my 4,000+ hours invested to try them out.

 As far as new plans go, I was able to play a little bit of ARC Raiders, a game I was waiting on for months after it didn't get shadow-dropped this past summer. It’s an amazing game with incredible experiences. So you'll find me over there in the solo queue, beating down robots and screaming, "FRIENDLY FRIENDLY FRIENDLY DON'T SHOOT!"

 That brings us to exploring options. What MMO is Heartless going to go play in the wake of New World's demise? I'm glad you asked.

 Guild Wars 2 jumps to mind immediately, as I have put an enormous number of hours into it prior to shifting to New World as my daily driver MMO. I have tried revisiting it a couple of times during my time playing New World, and I own the expansions up through Path of Fire, but in those revisits I couldn't jump backwards to tab-target combat. New World really spoiled me with its action combat. But if New World isn't an option, then Guild Wars 2 combat is still pretty good.

 Guild Wars 2 also has an amazing in-game economy, which was one of my favorite aspects when I've played it for extended periods. It is also casual in nature with true horizontal progression. Most time in Guild Wars 2 is spent doing something of interest vs. doing something strictly for vertical power gain. The barrier to entry for PvP is also low, which makes it easy to try things out—and easier to get friends to consider it.

 Albion Online is also attractive to go back to, as I have a few hundred hours logged there. While it is a step back visually because of its top-down isometric view, it more than makes up for it in variety of features. The in-game economy is unmatched in my opinion, and I played the market aspect of the game for months even after I gave up on PvP and PvE content. It is solo and casual friendly, but at the same time offers a deep, grind-it-out aspect for the more dedicated player. There is every level of PvP content you can imagine: risk-free and repeatable through to hardcore drop-everything-on-death.  Then private housing islands, crafting, refining, gathering, collecting, and even fishing!  There is a lot to enjoy about Albion Online.

 Ashes of Creation is in alpha testing and is the "next big thing" in MMOs (if there is such a thing). I've had a mixed history following and writing about this game. I don't think it's ready for my time yet, so I'll keep on watching and waiting for its fuller form to make it to a release.

 

 

 In reality, I am going to keep playing New World. I have a few months, at least, of enjoyment left. My friends and I will also be playing ARC Raiders. Then we'll re-evaluate early next year and maybe—you never know—just possibly, New World might get a lifeline.

Daggers of Depression

 New World Aeternum released a minor patch last night and with it they pulled back the curtain on multiple pending updates to the game that were in the hopper before Amazon rug pulled the entire studio and canceled the game's development.  Chief among the surprises waiting us was the reveal of daggers as the next weapon that would have been in New World.

 Daggers show up as a weapon skill tree option and their skill trees are available.  They cannot be unlocked yet and no daggers exist in the game yet (that we've found anyways; could be a drop hiding out there).  Update: daggers can be obtained from Reekwater's new vendor but they cannot be equipped.

 

Update: you can get daggers from the Reekwater Soulwarden vendor that was added in the patch.  Do the new Reekwater questline to learn more.

 The assumption is there is a quest or some other gating element not yet in the game to be able to equip the daggers. Update 2: And we can actually equip daggers!  Holy f'ing sh!t.

Dagger skill trees

 The Well of Fortune in Cutlass Keys was updated to include a dagger cache which goes to show that they were not forgetting about the FFA PvP zone and that they had plans to update to be relevant again in the new end game system.  Unfortunately no information on how to learn the dagger cache recipe (or the recipe for the new perk charms also pictured).

Dagger cache and unreleased perk charms in Well of Fortune

 Reekwater also received a zone update and a new node of the main story quest was added to the zone. We knew a zone rework was underway for Reekwater so its good to see some of that making it live into the game. 

 This all adds up to bring us into the depression stage of our grief journey since the end of development announcement.  Daggers were a much desired weapon within the community and knowing that areas like the FFA PvP zone were getting some love for the new end game was very promising.  Everything was headed in the right direction for this game.  Thank you to the few remaining devs who are letting this stuff leak out in the update files. 

Sunday 11/2/2025 Post: Packers lose to the Panthers

 The Green Bay Packers lost 16-13 to the Carolina Panthers. Once again, an early turnover for the Green Bay Packers became an insurmountable challenge for the team to overcome.

 Matt LaFleur coached teams, whether Aaron Rodgers or Jordan Love at QB, never seem to be able to adapt when the early game goes poorly. Sprinkle in some "f*ck it, chuck it" from Jordan Love, and this game was painful to watch as a Packers fan.

 The defense couldn’t get off the field, and the offense couldn’t execute. Then Matt LaFleur made the baffling decision to go for a TD on fourth down late in the game instead of kicking a field goal.

 This is the same Matt LaFleur who, a short few years ago, did the opposite in the NFC Championship Game—where he kicked a field goal instead of going for a TD. In the NFC Championship Game, it was the wrong call, so maybe that was in his brain here. But in this context against Carolina, a field goal made a ton of sense.

 Sure enough, after turning the ball over on downs with no points, the Panthers promptly gave it right back, with our defense finally figuring out how to stop Carolina. Then we marched right down and scored a TD.

 Had we kicked the field goal earlier, we’d have been up by three, but instead we settled for a tie ball game and gave the ball back to Carolina with 2:32 left in the game. A few plays later, time ticked away and Carolina kicked the game-winning field goal.

 Shocked Pikachu face. Damn, this team is dumb sometimes. Fire LaFleur or something, I guess. 

 

What Stage Are We At Today

 

 It’s been two days now since Amazon announced the end of development for New World: Aeternum, so let’s check in on where we are with our grief.

Denial
Anger
Bargaining ← we are here
Depression
Acceptance

 We speedran the denial stage. It didn’t take long to go from news of layoffs at Amazon to the announcement that New World’s development was ending. Maybe at first we could tell ourselves it wouldn’t be the entire dev team, but that was squashed quickly.

 Anger came swiftly to the shores of Aeternum. If we did a word diagram of the community feedback, the words “fuck” and “Amazon” would be big, bold, and centered.

 Now comes the bargaining phase, where each of us takes our grievances to our higher powers — for some, that is, sadly, Elon Musk. There’s a furious rumor that xAI is going to buy out Amazon Game Studios and New World. A plausible press release is making the rounds. There is some credence to this; xAI has well-known intentions of getting into gaming, and Elon has said he wanted a game out within the year. X is probably better than the game being dead, but I have some real-world grievances with Musk that I’d need to grapple with.

 So here we sit — hoping, and for some, praying — things will change and we’ll get our New World back. Tune back in tomorrow, where we stare over the edge of that slip into the depression stage.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness and em dashes (—) are the AI.   Yes, I realize the irony here with mentioning xAI as a possible suitor.

 

The Day After

 

 My nonexistent heart is still aching from the New World Aeternum end of development announcement.  I logged in and played last night; trying to pretend nothing was different but that was a fools errand.  It is hard to take the game seriously with development stopping and I can't blame those players that take the opportunity to goof off.  Lots of thoughts came in and so I needed to get some things out of my head and onto digital paper.

 First; I need to take the time to lay some thanks down:

• Thank you New World development team for bringing this game to us.  Thank you for making the daring call to transition from survival sandbox to an MMORPG.  You brought the only western developed MMORPG of note in the last decade.
• Thank you to this game for bringing me together to my new core gamer friend group.  Indestructible, Dback23, and even Tep... we met on Aeternum shores and will keep on keeping on wherever we find ourselves.
• Thank you to the content creators; more than I can likely remember but I'll try here:
• Mecrow - the mad scientist himself
• Atlas Fishmo - I'll miss Fishmo corner in the original OPR map; I'll miss yelling FISHMOOOOOO as I ran past.
• DukeSloth - man that broke my heart to hear your Ahoy in the shutdown video
• KristoferESO - for all of the PvP builds 
• Nyce Gaming - thanks for the heavy tank love brother 
• ThaCousin - best dollar I ever spent; thanks for the laughs 
• Redbyrd and BDLG - the OG content creators for New World; thank you for shepherding the community from well before launch through the first couple of years 
• To the rest I didn't list; thanks for all the fish 
• And lastly; thank you to the haters.  I will keep pressing one button, flamethrower on, until the day I can't log into the game anymore to burn you down.  Much respect. 

<3 to LoadingUsername / Valhalla

 In other "the day after" news we got some updates from NW Kay as she is still employed at Amazon.  She indicated there are additional updates and bug fixes still in the hopper and we should get a fix patch soon.  She also alluded to some "shenanigans" that may happen in the future. This was good to hear as it gives a little more life to the game, at least for me anyways.

 For many others though; they are gone.  Peak concurrent players cratered last night.  Down from a peak close to 50k down to a 8k.  Heavily populated areas were far more barren.  Many players are just standing around to chat which makes previously bristling hubs eerily still even though there are players.  Queues for things like arenas and OPR are still popping but the wait was longer.  At least the queue to login is gone now :(

 I'm not sure what my plan is.  I really did try to play like nothing happened thinking I could ride out the immediate storm and settle in with the core playerbase that was going to ride into the final sunset with the game, but I'm not sure I can do it.  My history with dieing games is I get off the ride early.  The only difference here is the game was actually getting better... not worse.  Sigh. 

 I'll leave off today with a message shared by NW Kay:

 

I couldn't agree more NW Kay; New World is a great game, still is, and we did build something special.  Respectfully; fuck you Amazon.
 

RIP New World Aeternum

A tent city memorial has been erected outside Windsward; remembering better times for the game

 As part of layoffs Amazon has made the decision to shutter the ongoing development of New World Aeternum and any future MMORPGs. New World is effectively dead as of the announcement yesterday.  The development studios in San Diego and Irvine were laid off.  I am devastated and this announcement is difficult to understand.

 New World was riding a high with their Season 10 Nighthaven update.  Vibes were positive and the update received widespread praise.  Players were returning and content creators were creating.  We were back baby!  

 Alas it was not meant to be and it's a hard pill to swallow with the promise that Season 10 brought.  It is such a good update with amazing concepts like Catacombs and a gearing system that was going to require for more investment than past systems.  The stage was set for a better future in the game.

 The rug pull by Amazon is as insensitive to the players as it was to the developers.  I can't imagine the crunch that likely went into getting Nighthaven ready to ship, seeing the response from the community, and then to walk into a layoff.  Then we go back to the signs that were staring us in the face the entire time and it feels worse.

• The announcement to move the Nighthaven release forward to earlier in October right before the layoff announcement
• Areas of the Nighthaven zone were unfinished; large empty spaces that in retrospect were likely cut to make the date vs being areas for future expansion
• The hesitation to add any new servers to accommodate the growing queue size

 From all accounts the end user developers didn't see this coming but looking at the items noted above it is clear some level of leadership knew which makes all of this feel even worse.  Some sort of sick swan song they maybe thought the community would be happy with to ride off into the sunset.  

My Halloween themed transmog

 The worst part of this is the game is still available but there will not be any bug fixes, balance changes, or feature updates to build on the amazing changes that Season 10 brought.  We are stuck with the entirely random gear acquisition system, gutted crafting, PvP balance questions due to the large number of changes, and now a rapidly declining playerbase. 

 While Amazon may keep the doors open to the servers through 2026 the game will not be the same.  Player count plummeted following the announcement (down to ~7,000 peak users from the ~49,000 peak on Steam alone).  Logging in the world is filled with memorials and tent cities in honor of what was.  Playing game modes like 3v3 arenas were full of folks goofing off or giving it one last go before logging off for the final time.  I don't blame anyone; it is hard to take an MMO seriously that has no plans to continue development.

One more run through Starstone Barrows; ironically helping a player that has never done it before

 

 For me personally it is the end of thousands of hours of investment. The magic of MMORPGs for me is that every thing I do is working towards a future.  That constant progression is what separates these games from everything else.  The promise of decades of an online existence is intoxicating.  Every piece of furniture in my houses tells a story.  Each old piece of gear in my storage reminds me of a past version of my build. The hundreds of thousands of in game gold I squirreled away for a rainy day is now meaningless.

 Meaningless is what hurts the most.  I've been around when other games have died like Star Wars Galaxies, but for the most part every other major MMO that I've put time and effort into are still running.  Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, Dark Ages of Camelot, Guild Wars 2, and more... all still plodding along in some form or another.  And while Star Wars Galaxies hurt to see go it was it's time as the developers had moved the game away from what made it special in the first place.  New World is different and will be different in the history of MMOs.

One more 3v3 arena with friends

 

 Thank you to the developers that brought me this game and gave us the only decent MMORPG in the past 10 years.  New World never asked for more than the box cost and was the "casual dad gamer" game of choice.  I loved every damn minute of this game.  I loved every freaking second I spent defending this game against the haters.

  Stop killing games.  Fuck you Amazon.   

Looking at my house in Windsward

So many memories tied to each item in my house.  Its a mess, but its my mess.

 

ARC Raiders Preload Is Available

 Here we go! ARC Raiders preloads are starting for the launch October 30th!

Sunday 10/26/2025 Post: Packers beat Aaron Rodgers

 Against the Steelers the Packers had a rough first half.  It was looking like the bad man himself, Aaron Rodgers, was about to bad man himself all over the team.  Then the second half rolled around and Love won.  I always love a good tale of two halves.  A meme to commemorate the occasion.

 

How I Evaluate Gear and Loot in New World Aeternum Nighthaven

My inventory is a mess of "maybe" useful
items.

  As I've alluded to in posts about Nighthaven one of the big areas of focus for New World players post Nighthaven update is the plethora of legendary loot landing in our inventories and trying to understand what is good and what is not good in the new gearing system.  Like anytime I am faced with analysis paralysis I need to break things up into smaller chunks and most importantly, write them down.  But as y'all can't see my notebook I am digitizing my thoughts here on this blog post.

 It is worth noting up front that I am not an expert (yet) of this new system and some of this information could be wrong or misguided or there is nuance and bias to my current state that is driving me in a direction that may not work for you.  Feel free to comment on anything I get wrong or may not have considered.  This is very much a living document.

 I will break this post up into a few sections:

• How I am thinking about my builds
• A note on infixes and set bonuses 
• Evaluating armor
• Evaluating weapons
• Evaluating jewelry 

How I am thinking about my builds

 With the new gearing system you have to think of your gear as a whole vs individual pieces.  This is because a single piece could handle multiple needs.  In the old system gear was often limited to filling a single need.  For example; in the new system I could have a single item with two weapon skill perks on it so that means another item doesn't need a skill slot and thus could have another perk instead.

 With that in mind when I break down my main build I am thinking in terms of what perks I want across all gear.  From there I need to determine, of those perks, which can be slotted via perk charms and which are fixed perks (including infixes).  The fixed perks are the major limiting factor as we have no control over them.  We either get a drop with the right fixed perks + an infix or we don't (or we find one on the trading post).  

 For perk charms I just need to ensure I have the right type of slot for each charm and those slots can be on any piece of gear; for example armor piece one may have two defensive charm slots and another armor piece could have two offensive charm slots and then my shield may have two weapon skill perk slots.  So as long as my gear, in total, has the right number of slots I am good to go.  The only consideration is if you need a specific weapon perk on a weapon where it will be stronger than if it was on armor then you'd want to make sure to get a skill slot on your weapon.

 Lastly you need to consider gems and gem slots as they compete with offense/defense/skill charm slots. The general consensus at this point is that gem slots are a "best" option on weapons.  A gem will do more for a weapon than any other perk will do in terms of damage.  Gems on armor are up for debate as the % reduction gems offer was nerfed from 6% to 4% and other perks like conditioning offer 5% so in theory could be better than a gem slot (though a gem can be changed out if needed with another gem of a different type).  Runeglass gems may be a different decision to make because  they offer protection + other effects; for example I run 4x runeglass gems that increase my fire damage so am leaning more on gem slots in my armor.  Gem slots in jewelry are a hot debate so probably comes down to preference there.

 If I take this into account for my heavy flamethrower build here is what I am looking for on gear:

• I need 5x defensive slots for Enchanted Ward II
• I need 1x skill slot on armor for Accelerating Flamethrower II
• I need 1x skill slot on my sword for Contagious Upheaval
• I don't need many, if any offensive skill slots if I keep using my current artifact firestaffs which have them baked in
• I want slash conditioning, thrust conditioning, fire conditioning, and likely a few of the new perks that drop in the fixed perk bucket (I don't have a list together yet) 

 And if this wasn't enough; we have to consider that OLD perks and gear are still in the game and can be upgraded.  There may be a situation where that old armor piece with refreshing/wellness/health/<whatever> is a stronger option.  Note: not all old gear scales to 800 properly so check all stats like damage and armor values before committing to an upgrade.  For example; Frigid Dawn armor value does not scale to 800.

 So now that I have somewhat of an idea what I am looking for I can start sorting my inventory by the mandatory needs.   I know I am looking for X slots of Y type and the best mix of Z fixed perks/infix.

A note on infixes and set bonuses

 I am also paying attention to infix perks which are unique perks on specific items.  The rest of the item is still randomly generated for charm slots and fixed perks but the infix will always be the same for that item type.  Research the infixes you may be interested in and its worth likely saving any of them. 

 Then there are set bonus which are in addition to the other perks.  Set bonus trigger bonuses when you have the right number of set bonus gear equipped.  At this stage it's best to just keep any set bonus gear and assume it may fill a spot.  It is possible you will find unlocking a set bonus milestone is better than a gear item with better perks.

Evaluating armor

 For armor the mandatory need is that skill slot so I am going to be looking for pieces with a skill slot and looking at their fixed perks first.  I then set all of them aside (i.e. lock them in my inventory).

 Next I am looking for those armor pieces with defensive slots; whether it is one or multiple slots on a single item.  For example; I have a heavy glove with 3 defensive slots to fill.  Bonus points if I get skill + defensive slot together; that goes to the top of my list. 

 With what I've carved out I am then looking at fixed perks and finding the best combination of them between pieces.  This means a lot of items stick around in storage as the puzzle will evolve over time.

Evaluating weapons

 For weapons I will give some more general advice on what I think is best: right charm slots + gem slot + attunement (which are fixed perks).  I think an ideal weapon would be 3x attunements, gem slot, skill slot.  Again the gem slot and the skill slot are pretty much make or break.  This load out on a weapon basically makes it a "stat stick" and it is becoming evident that is going to be the meta on weapons that are not artifacts.  There are certainly viable other fixed perks but as most of us are after damage the attunements are going to be key.

 One thing you can consider, if you have a build like me, is that you may not need that gem slot on the weapon you use less.  For example; I rarely use my sword so it's damage is not a concern so when I got a sword that had flame attunement + 4 slots (2 skill, 2 offense) from the crafting fall out after the patch I started using it.  Now I have attunement, contagious upheaval II, empowering leaping strike II, and 2 offense slots to play with for a weapon that is only out when I am leaping striking or upheaving.

 Shields, which fall into weapons in the game, are a bit harder to evaluate because some perks slotted on a shield may apply even when that shield is not your current equipped weapon.  For example; when I swap to my firestaff from my sword/shield perks like keenly jagged II on my shield will still proc.  Since I have keenly jagged II on my firestaff I'd not want it on the shield but the situation could have been reversed and the shield could have covered for a firestaff that didn't have it.  It's not clear yet to me how you tell what perks work "when equipped" vs "when slotted" so more diligence is needed. 

Evaluating jewelry 

 I will admit I am stuck on how to best evaluate jewelry at the moment.  I need to spend more time with it but the core concept remains the same; look for the right fixed perks and the right slots needed to fill in your over all build.  A gem slot on a jewelry piece may be useful if you need more protection of a specific type or another of the new perks may be more interesting.  Then consider set bonuses and infixes and it gets complicated.  Needless to say the underlying rules remain of counting the slots/perks on your jewelry in your over all build. Jewelry can host offensive and defensive charm slots like armor and weapons.