Look, let us be honest—Westeros has seen quite a bit of a shake-up this week. Game of Thrones: Kingsroad has just wrapped up its second regular season alongside a massive content drop. Meanwhile, things are heating up across North America as pre-registrations for a brand-new server kick off. Let us dive right into what is happening.

Among the various content updates, the new Abyss Altar boss has naturally stolen the spotlight. First unveiled in North America, the Fireworm of the Boiling Rift apparently spawned from the very flames of Valyria. You will need to carefully dodge molten lava pooling on the ground while surviving the boss's onslaught. There is even a mechanic requiring sub-weapons to block wide-area instant-kill attacks. All things considered, the difficulty has taken a sharp spike compared to Kraken, the previous Abyss Altar boss.

A boss of this calibre has certainly breathed some fresh life into the continent. Dozens of players managed to claim victory and snap up various rewards on the very day of the update. If you have not tested your mettle against it yet, best get on it.

The latest patch also brought some skill balance adjustments for the Assassin. Though, once the developers pulled back the curtain, the actual impact felt rather subtle, leaving quite a few Assassin mains scratching their heads.

The tweaks focused on three main directions. First, detonating blood-leak stacks now grants a 3.5% attack speed boost for 8 seconds. Essentially, it speeds up the core Assassin loop of stacking and detonating blood-leaks, which has gone down quite well with the community.

On the flip side, the buffs tied to attacking poisoned targets and the improvements to the Roundhouse Kick skill have received a rather lukewarm response. After all, it was a low-priority skill to begin with. Plus, the buff numbers simply are not high enough to justify benching staple skills like Mutilate, Dagger Toss, Ambush, or Retreat. It is hardly surprising that the improvements feel underwhelming.

Over in North America, pre-registrations for the brand-new server opened on September 22. As the developer notes previously pointed out, this fresh server is meant to bring Asian server content directly to the North American region. Sadly, cross-play between North American users and players from other regions remains off the table.

When the new server was first announced, the local reaction was anything to write home about. Players were less than thrilled at the prospect of abandoning characters they had already poured time and capital into. The developers promised rewards tied to existing character progression should players choose to transfer, but it was still a tough pill to swallow.

Yet, ever since pre-registrations opened, public sentiment has staged a bit of a turnaround. Optimism is steadily brewing across the board. North American players are busy picking apart the Asian server's content and updates. On top of that, some players are diving even deeper into existing servers just to farm extra rewards. Just a heads-up, the new server officially launches today on October 14. If you have been playing on the North American servers or fancy a look, it might be worth checking out.