Cool Stuff in New World Update 1.8

 New World Update 1.8 has arrived and with it some cool stuff!  Full release notes here.

 First up is a return of the Winter Convergence festival.  Last year's festival was a resounding success; gleamite meteors shocking the MMORPG world and showing how open world content can surprise and delight players!  The meteors are back (along with the videos with "whoa this is cool" reactions).

 New this year with the festival is an open world boss; the Winter Warrior.  Similar to the Halloween event boss the Winter Warrior will appear in the open world and require a zerg of players to take down.  Initial reports are the fight is fun and has healers running for their lives.

 The update also brings a new mutated expedition that combines Starstone Barrows and Amrine.  It will be cool to revisit these two early game expeditions.  Most players likely gave Amrine a spin in their early teens of leveling but many have never stepped foot into Starstone Barrows as it is easy to leap frog leveling right past it.  Personally I've never done Starstone so looking forward to giving it a whirl.

 The most newsworthy part of the update is the shell company mitigation which will restrict how players can hop companies and how war rosters have to come together.  This should hopefully help reduce single companies, who were creating multiple shell companies, from dominating the map.  End goal is to get more players into war because more companies can participate.  This is a watch and see change, but on paper it makes sense to have the intended effect.

 I didn't get a chance to try the patch out yesterday, but will be jumping in today.  Are you out hunting meteor showers?  If so leave a comment!

 And oooohhh pretty!