Does New World have a fatal weakness in the program code regarding the connection between server and client? Amazon and the MMO players disagree.
The infamous invulnerability glitch in New World has been fixed since patch 1.3, but the problem behind it continues to preoccupy the MMO community. In a video, the acclaimed YouTuber Josh Strife Hayes proposes that New World has fundamental weaknesses in its programming code – and we’re not talking about the crashes caused by posting HTML messages. Meanwhile, editor Elena has made a completely different point of criticism of the game:
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The latest doubts about the technical quality of New World are particularly about the relationship between server and client: Allegedly, the immortality exploit demonstrates that the information from the client (the PC on which you play New World) meets the requirements of the Amazon Server can overwrite.
This would destroy the balance, especially in PvP, because players could give their characters an unfair advantage by writing and executing scripts, just like with the now fixed glitch:
The theory last got through a twitter thread by Jorge L. Rodríguez further food. In it, the programmer formerly employed at Amazon explains that the New World engine, i.e. the technical substructure of the game, has undergone major changes over time.
According to Rodríguez, the developers had to maintain two parallel programming paths for a long time. One of them was based on the network code of the CryEngine and was “client authorative” – calculations that were necessary for the operation of the game (for example to determine the damage values caused in combat) were carried out on the player’s PC, not on the server as is common in MMOs. However, Rodríguez himself admits that the team behind New World have made a lot of changes to the network code over the years and the original CryEngine version was never released.
Link to Twitter content
Amazon reacts to the allegations
In view of the wild speculation, developer Amazon Game Studios was forced to comment on the weekend: Community Manager Luxendra gives in the official forum to the record that with New World the client does not generally overwrite the server.
“New World is not client authoritarian – from a simulation standpoint, New World is completely server-based. Overall, the model looks like this: clients send controller inputs to the server and the server checks these inputs for restrictions that could invalidate them and then, if accepted, uses them as input for a character (› actor ‹is our internal name) in the server memory. The physics and rules of the game are then executed (entirely on the server side) and the result is sent back to the original client. The clients then pull the result determined by the server. “
If you want to know whether Amazon’s MMO is worthwhile for you regardless of such problems, we recommend you our test of New World, in which we also devalue due to technical errors. We also have a detailed video review:
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How good is New World really now?
The Amazon employee explains in the forum post an example of how the process works and finally goes into the invulnerability glitch. This was due to the fact that in certain situations the game waited for input from a client before the results were processed further.
“Combined with an intentional weapon effect that allowed a brief invulnerability, this created a situation where players could attain and extend an invulnerable state by rendering the client unresponsive, even though the client had no control over the damage. […]
Both the damage caused by the player and the damage suffered by the player are calculated on the server based on the results of the physics simulation and the rules of the game. “
Amazon apologizes in its statement for the “particularly bad mistake”. At the same time, one emphasizes: “However, at no point do the clients make decisions or ‘freeze’ the figures – if the figures are frozen, this is because the client has delayed displaying the actions, but the server simulation continues.”
