[Megathread] Amazon's New World MMO

[Nyel]

They literally didn't, and your extensive complaints about how it's not a traditional theme park MMO should speak to that.

But it is a traditional themepark MMORPG, at least it strives to be. A traditional themepark that's just lacking content and variety.

- Main "story" that guides you through the game (half-assed as you have to grind several levels to continue the main story, this happens after level 30 and keeps happening until max level)

- Expeditions (aka dungeons) added very late in the development process

- Abundance of loot from enemies

- No death penalty anymore

- PvP not an integral part of the game anymore

- Turn towards the classical holy trinity in (PvE) combat

- Rinse and repeat, copy and paste quests everywhere (most quests didn't exist early last year)

(just to name a few things)

Everything that made this game special in the beginning was removed or so much watered down that it doesn't really matter anymore. All of this just to generate yet another themepark MMORPG. That's not an issue per se, it's just an issue when you're unable to deliver - and that's exactly the problem of New World, it simply doesn't deliver, especially for the PvE crowd.

I'd love to link you the producer letters from early last year before they delayed the game for an entire year, but they deleted all of them: https://twitter.com/playnewworld/sta...904577?lang=de results in an error message, like most of their letters / interviews from last year.

[Deadite]

I still think Star Wars Galaxies was one of the best MMOs for its time. it wasn't without its flaws, but the customization was incredible.

Its unfortunate they butchered it with CU/NGE. I'd still love to see a decent MMO based around their system.

That said, NW is starting to look more and more like a pass for me.

Still look back on my Master Doctor/TKA character with fondness.

New World i think has a few big flaws that means the game won't have leggs for me. They need to add fast travel to portals/towns from any where asap and make it cheaper. It can cost 300 odd to jump just one zone over if your bags are full.

The quests are all pretty much horrible. They are like the old Classic WoW quest when you have to go into a cave and kill 10 yetis and you run back and you get a quest to go back to the same cave and get 10 yeti fun and then you run back and have to got into the same cave to kill the yeti boss.

Storage. Holy shit. My bank is full ,well my banks are full. I have to keep all my cooking stuff in one town and all my wood stuff in another town and everything else in another town. You have to hoover up everything. Pick every herb. Mine every node. Skin every kill. The way i play just now is drop everything off in the bank and run to do some quests. By the time i run to and from quests i am full again. I have to make some random bullshit to skill up just so i have some room. I can't make chests yet and they cost 2kish on my realm. I don't have that thanks to blowing it all on a house.

I am only level 36 just now and still enjoy it thur far but i know i can't be arsed to mine iron to make steel to make starmetal to make what ever is after that. Defo still enjoying the trip to max level still but i can feel it in my bones that i prolly will tap out shortly after for a while.

[Fencers]

But it is a traditional themepark MMORPG, at least it strives to be. A traditional themepark that's just lacking content and variety.

- Main "story" that guides you through the game (half-assed as you have to grind several levels to continue the main story, this happens after level 30 and keeps happening until max level)

- Expeditions (aka dungeons) added very late in the development process

- Abundance of loot from enemies

- No death penalty anymore

- PvP not an integral part of the game anymore

- Turn towards the classical holy trinity in (PvE) combat

- Rinse and repeat, copy and paste quests everywhere (most quests didn't exist early last year)

(just to name a few things)

Some of this is neither exclusionary nor exclusive to either them park or Grand style MMORPGs. This is a pretty arbitrary list of things, frankly.

[GreenJesus]

There are two level 60 and one level 55 dungeon. I'll give you that, three endgame dungeons. And yes, what I mean is structured raiding indeed. As I said, in New World there is not even the option to create groups of more than 5 players. I find it hard to call grinding elite zones in 5-player-groups "raiding".

Lol world bosses in shadowlands have to be called "raiding" then.. xD

The only challenge of world bosses in WoW now is struggling to get more than 1 FPS.

[Edge-]

- Main "story" that guides you through the game (half-assed as you have to grind several levels to continue the main story, this happens after level 30 and keeps happening until max level)

- Expeditions (aka dungeons) added very late in the development process

- Abundance of loot from enemies

- No death penalty anymore

- PvP not an integral part of the game anymore

- Turn towards the classical holy trinity in (PvE) combat

- Rinse and repeat, copy and paste quests everywhere (most quests didn't exist early last year)

None of these things are inherently exclusive to theme parks.

Main story? Nope, plenty of sandboxes with a story to point you in directions.
Dungeons are also available in sandbox games.
Loot from enemies is common in sandboxes.
No death penalty isn't unique to theme parks.
PvP remains integral to the game (though optional) and has nothing to do with it being a them park MMO
Trinity or not has nothing to do with theme park vs. sandbox (GW2 is a theme park and launched without a hard trinity)
Repeatable quests exist in sandboxes as well and aren't exclusive to theme parks.

[Tojara]

I'm not sure what people expect. How many games are going to hold your attention, MMO or otherwise if you sink over 100 hours into the game in the first couple weeks? That faults on you, not necessarily the developers. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be more, but don't pull a surprised Pikachu face when many people commenting on the games lasting appeal are sinking 8-12 hours into the game for it's two week anniversary.

I ended up picking up the game and I quite enjoy many aspects of it, while obviously having issues with lots of things. I never picked this up assuming it was going to have lasting appeal to a player like me, because I've never enjoyed "PvP" MMOs. However I enjoy the crafting/gathering aspect of it quite a bit, and I can't say I didn't enjoy the few dungeons I've been in. The PvE actually isn't bad from a dungeon standpoint, I sincerely hope they expand upon it because it honestly has a lot of potential.

Take the game for what it is. It's a 40 dollar game without a subscription. If you like crafting/gathering with some PvE there is certainly enough to keep your attention, even if I'd call aspects of the game a little bit bland. It's not revolutionary. If you like open world PvP games, that's basically your end game. I purposely looked at nothing besides a few friends telling me the game was fun, because I know full well there's no real PvE end game (yet). I fully plan to get to max level, cap out a lot of the crafting and try a bit of the PvP before putting the game down waiting for some updates to draw me back in.

I honestly think the market for open world PvP games is so incredibly small though and I don't think long term games should ever focus fully on it. This type of community just fulfills a self-defeating prophecy ever single time. They want to PvP, but they never want anything to be fair and seek out any opportunity to control or grief the player base on the server that they're on, then surprise Pikachu face when nobody flags for PvP or the PvP becomes boring because there's absolutely no challenge.

On my server in particular it's just incessant shit talking by the purple faction because loads of bigger guilds and groups decided to roll on this server, all the while rushing to level 60. The breakdown on ours is 9 regions held by purple, 2 held by yellow and 0 held by green. All of this is fine, but anybody rolling on this server just sees the map being purple and just continually rolls purple making the factions severely imbalanced. Before loads of 'get good' comments come rolling in, it's not necessarily a skill issue more that it's a zerg issues when it comes to forts, and that when any 50v50 battle takes place, the green/yellow faction has maybe half of the battle filled with people above 50 (where purple is just all max levels).

The above has kind of devastating effects on how the game feels and plays though, likely turning people away. Fast travel using Azoth is incredibly fucking expensive if you don't own any zones, completely limiting any ability to traverse the map (and therefore defend). Other issues arise too, but I sort of like that there are perks to owning zones (storage being linked to any zone you own is massive). Thinking about it, having each individual zone with it's own AH is sort of smart because you have economies everywhere that can be weighed against the opportunity cost of traveling for potentially cheaper things (time = money).

At the end of the day this game was way more fun than Guild Wars 2 to me. GW2 had a mess of PvE and nothing that really stuck out to me (maybe the story was good IDK). To be honest I can't tell you what the story even is in New World beyond it's a new land mass, there's zombies everywhere and there's shit corrupting stuff. I think I got burned out on MMO stories after paying attention to the FF14 that I just wanted to jump straight into gameplay.

[Nyel]

None of these things are inherently exclusive to theme parks.

Main story? Nope, plenty of sandboxes with a story to point you in directions.
Dungeons are also available in sandbox games.
Loot from enemies is common in sandboxes.
No death penalty isn't unique to theme parks.
PvP remains integral to the game (though optional) and has nothing to do with it being a them park MMO
Trinity or not has nothing to do with theme park vs. sandbox (GW2 is a theme park and launched without a hard trinity)
Repeatable quests exist in sandboxes as well and aren't exclusive to theme parks.

Okay, (I think) I get it. They just added expeditions, the main story and quests just because. There clearly was no intention behind all of that. Yep.

If New World is indeed no themerpark MMORPG and just a sandbox (as some claim), where is the player-made PvE content? Not existing? Strange... which other types of MMORPGs dont offer player-made PvE content? Ah right, themepark MMORPGs.

[La]

So, watching Sacriel's stream, someone in chat says something along the lines of "people that have played for over 250 hours are getting bored and that's a bad thing lol" in relation to this being an MMO.

Personally, if you've played 250 hours of New World in the... what, 2 weeks(?) since it launched, I'd say the game is doing fine with regards to your cost:enjoyment ratio, surely?


World bosses are basically just outdoor raids, yes.

The problem is it's an MMO, and while part of it is the journey a big part of it is the endgame. As you go through this game you start to feel the sameness of everything, and people complain and joke about "rushing" and then complaining about the lack of content, but the irony is they'll complain when they get to endgame, too.

For what you pay, sure, you get what you pay for, a lot of that is because the game is built in a way that you're encouraged to do a lot of different things, which then delays the time it takes for a persons brain to realize how lacking and repetitive it really is. But, PvP wise it seems there are very few complaints there outside of some.. obvious flaws. Like the fact some people will quite simply never take part in a war.

As for PvE, if that's your intent with this game you will take a while to realize that this game was 100% built and designed in all of its systems in PvP. In fact you can't even play this game for its crafting or market, because everyone can do it all so relatively easy that it won't be that difficult for loads of people to sell some absolutely amazing items for affordable prices.

[Edge-]

Okay, (I think) I get it. They just added expeditions, the main story and quests just because. There clearly was no intention behind all of that. Yep.

The intention was to add actual PvE content. It's more of a "sandpark", not a sandbox, not a theme park, but bits of both.

If New World is indeed no themerpark MMORPG and just a sandbox (as some claim)

Not a sandbox either.

Strange... which other types of MMORPGs dont offer player-made PvE content? Ah right, themepark MMORPGs.

Black Desert is a Diet Sandbox/Sandpark and doesn't feature player-made PvE content. Hell, Player-made PvE content doesn't even really exist in MMO's anymore since Cryptic took it out of the theme park MMO's that were STO and Neverwinter, and SOE/Daybreak I think took it out of EQ2 as well.

There's player driven content, which absolutely exists in New World (and Black Desert) which is where the shades of sandbox come in. Not an actual sandbox, but some sandbox elements that make it a "sandpark".

[rhorle]

Huh? What do you mean check some markets? That doesn't require travel. Am I misunderstanding you?

Markets are per zone. If you are checking other markets for mats/stuff or just to list in other zones it adds up fast. If you rarely travel, or stay in your faction controlled zones, Azoth isn't a huge concern. If you have to travel outside of faction control, craft (adding azoth increases perk chance and value) it can all add up.

[PACOX]

To be honest i wonder why people are in such a rush to get to level 60. I saw this a lot in WoW over the years, people just kept skipping content, run raids and then complain of content drought.

Have some people just forgot how to have fun anymore? I totally get the game might not be for everyone (none are) but you can't argue that millions are currently having fun, and the potential is there to make this even better in the long term. I think they will expand the dungeon content and do more public things eventually but the game has literally just launched and a couple of people moaning about end game?

For the low cost of buying the game and with no subscription there is no way that i think you can say this game is not value for money.

The quests don't really change from 1-59 so I can see why someone would try to rush to see if 60 has anything more for them. Also since a number of players are drawn to the ways and PVP, and how the current design of wars means you want to get a leg up on everyone if you want a spot, I can the rush. Remember the game was initially and still has the skelton of a pvp survival game. People aren't trying to spend hours on the PVE.

[Edge-]

A big part of NW is the journey. It's a far larger part than the end game, because end game is essentially more of what you did on the way there.

This. Too many folks discount the journey for the destination, not realizing that both can be equally important rather than having one more important than the other. Very similar to how GW2 was initially designed and still remains (even with their few steps towards a different endgame with strikes/raids, which remain a minor focus of the overall content at max level).

[Fencers]

Okay, (I think) I get it. They just added expeditions, the main story and quests just because. There clearly was no intention behind all of that. Yep.

The intention was to provide more PVE based activity for players. That doesn't mean the DDT was laid out to be a theme park because enemies drop loot.

where is the player-made PvE content?

This is not required or exclusive to PVE or sandbox design either.

- - - Updated - - -

Markets are per zone. If you are checking other markets for mats/stuff or just to list in other zones it adds up fast. If you rarely travel, or stay in your faction controlled zones, Azoth isn't a huge concern. If you have to travel outside of faction control, craft (adding azoth increases perk chance and value) it can all add up.

I still don't know why you have to travel to "check markets". That can be done without traveling in the game. I am confused by what is being done here that requires travel.

You don't have to add azoth to crafts either. There are just craft mods you can add. You can add azoth to better enhance crafts, but that is really only worthwhile at a high level.

Also, you get gobs of Azoth. You get Azoth from rifts, mobs, gathering, quests, and get reward vials of Azoth of all of the aforementioned in addition to the regular azoth. It's on the marketplace too.

[Nyel]

A big part of NW is the journey. It's a far larger part than the end game, because end game is essentially more of what you did on the way there.

But to have played 250+ hours in the space of a couple of weeks, I think those people are doing OK. Its a B2P MMO, after all, you don't need to live inside the MMO every bit of free time you get.

Who says that? I mean who made this definition? "It's about the journey" - where does this come from? Higher level / max level is mandatory for several activities in New World. Crafting armor and weapons basically is only worth it on max level. PvP requires you to be max level (or better: higher level than your opponent) to be effective. I don't really see how the journey is what this game is about when so much stuff is just locked behind max level.

- - - Updated - - -

The problem is it's an MMO, and while part of it is the journey a big part of it is the endgame. As you go through this game you start to feel the sameness of everything, and people complain and joke about "rushing" and then complaining about the lack of content, but the irony is they'll complain when they get to endgame, too.

Yeah, this is something that barely makes sense. People say "they rushed to max level", but when they themselves reach max level in 2 weeks, there's still no endgame content. What's the excuse then, because they obviously didn't rush to max level?

[Edge-]

Who says that? I mean who made this definition? "It's about the journey" - where does this come from?

The design of the game...which isn't that the "endgame" is radically different than what you did leveling, and instead is far more similar to what you did while leveling, just with access to more stuff.

Higher level / max level is mandatory for several activities in New World. Crafting armor and weapons basically is only worth it on max level.

Yet you still need to get your harvesting/refining/crafting professions up to max level to craft, so it's part of that journey and a key part given that a lot of good gear appears to be crafted.

I don't really see how the journey is what this game is about when so much stuff is just locked behind max level.

There's very little "new" that's locked behind max level, it's just access to "more of it" which...makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, this is something that barely makes sense. People say "they rushed to max level", but when they themselves reach max level in 2 weeks, there's still no endgame content. What's the excuse then, because they obviously didn't rush to max level?

Is there some expectation of magical patches that drop big content within days/weeks of launch? Most of the folks I see complaining about the lack of content have done so in the manner you have - there's no traditional second generation theme park endgame with raiding and other activities that you never engage with while leveling, and there's not a "whole new game" that opens up as a result.

That's an issue of player expectations more than anything else, since NW was never sold/marketed as that type of game.

[PACOX]

What "endgame" would you like to see? Would you like to do the same 8 dungeons in an ever slightly increasing difficulty for 2 years? Sounds thrilling to me.

I mean the game has a built in RvR and town management system that could prolong endgame with some tweaks. There's a market for people who will play just for territory wars and playing the economy system.

You dont need dungeons for endgame but Amazon has been selling that idea to players.

[Nyel]

The design of the game...which isn't that the "endgame" is radically different than what you did leveling, and instead is far more similar to what you did while leveling, just with access to more stuff.



Yet you still need to get your harvesting/refining/crafting professions up to max level to craft, so it's part of that journey and a key part given that a lot of good gear appears to be crafted.



There's very little "new" that's locked behind max level, it's just access to "more of it" which...makes a lot of sense.



Is there some expectation of magical patches that drop big content within days/weeks of launch? Most of the folks I see complaining about the lack of content have done so in the manner you have - there's no traditional second generation theme park endgame with raiding and other activities that you never engage with while leveling, and there's not a "whole new game" that opens up as a result.

That's an issue of player expectations more than anything else, since NW was never sold/marketed as that type of game.

Again, how do you come to this conclusion? Just because the endgame doesn't offer any variety compared to the content during the leveling process, it doesn't automatically make the "journey" the real game as you suppose. For me this very much sounds like a strawman argument to defend the utter lack of endgame content by just making "everything" from start to finish endgame content.

[rhorle]

You don't have to add azoth to crafts either. There are just craft mods you can add. You can add azoth to better enhance crafts, but that is really only worthwhile at a high level.

If you are making things like bags or tools then if you don't add Azoth to get as many perks as you can you are wasting value/mats. You also don't get gobs of azoth if no rifts or quests are in your area. If you are on a high pop server you might have tons always up on the market but you can still run out. You just aren't traveling or crafting much if you haven't.

[Fencers]

Again, how do you come to this conclusion? Just because the endgame doesn't offer any variety compared to the content during the leveling process, it doesn't automatically make the "journey" the real game as you suppose. For me this very much sounds like a strawman argument to defend the utter lack of endgame content by just making "everything" from start to finish endgame content.

This seems like just more your personal criteria; there are max-level areas, zones, and activities.
it may not be enough to satisfy your personal needs of volume. But the game does have things you do at max level.

It honestly just sounds like it is either not your taste (perfectly fine) or doesn't meet a measuring line you personally have set.

If I made a game, and I have made games for a living, it is up to me as a designer and developer to come up with whatever I want for my game. It is my vision, my art.

There are no genre police that will show up at my door to issue a citation for this or that aspect of my game being whatever I choose to make of it. Developers don't have to do anything in one particular style. They can blend aspects of other games, or not. Add certain aspects in part or whole, or not at all. No genre police are showing up to tell you how to make your game.

"I don't think this game has enough activities at the maximum level for my personal enjoyment." is a different notion from "This game utterly lacks anything to do at maximum level."

Bad conceptions of how you talk about games are ruinous to the art or games.

[Takure]

New World is probably the best game I have played in awhile.

I think the main problem with these games, essentially - is google. Everyone wants to know (and does know) everything about the game to find the most efficient way to do everything as to min max their time investment. I get it, people have limited time. But playing a game in a way that makes it so you don't have to play the game is nonsensical. No sense of discovery, no sense of mystery. No majesty, just grind grind grind.

Two weeks in I have under 30 hours played, no guides, no google - am level 24. I am finding that I get lost easily, and its sometimes frustrating - but overcoming that feels rewarding.