Originally Posted by
Cthulhu 2020
My subjective review with over 100 hours put into this game.
I rolled on a huge server initially at like 4 AM, then there was a 5000 person queue the next day, so I rolled on a high population server that had a very small queue. After experimenting with the feel of different weapons, I went with hatchet/bow for my main PvE farming and am going to eventually be using musket/hammer/axe/hatchet in PvP based on the situation. At least that was my plan.
So far I've been engrossed in crafting and gathering. I won't say this is the best game for crafting and gathering, but it's up there. I like the design of FFXIV crafting, where a crafting mini game takes place to create high quality items. But new world's style of make tons of stuff isn't so bad either. It makes crafting at higher levels have a higher barrier to entry, but I LIKE that. I don't want everyone and their brother to be able to be master crafters with a small number of crafts. WoW's crafting system really turned me off in that way. Everyone and their brother had maxed crafting and people always sold items for less than the cost of their parts. But I digress. I've been making plenty of money in New World maintaining a pretty cutting edge crafting presence, selling tools starting with steel, then starmetal, and now Orichalcum.
I own a couple of houses but don't give two shits about them beyond the storage and extra recall.
The action combat is fun at first, but gets boring very fast. The lack of enemy diversity makes the lack of combat diversity all the more apparent. Some weapons are OP, others are considered shit.
I'm not at endgame yet, but I hear there's very little of it at the moment, and that'll be the death of the game. That and a host of other issues. I've been half following the story, and I tried, trust me I tried, but as a writer this is very much a story written by game developers and not an actual writer. And if the story was written by an actual writer... I'm sorry but please, get some practice. At the start of every new MMO, I'm excited to learn about the characters, the lore, and the story. But the lore is basically paper thin, something slapped onto a world to justify its existence. The story is also very bare bones. And the characters? I can't remember a single name while making this post. Nobody was memorable.
The other interesting aspect about this game aside from the crafting is the PvP and territory ownership system. While it was exciting with the back and forths at first, it's become very very very stale. Sieges are hard to win in a fairly matched fight. Two factions on my server dominate, and the third one holds one territory just barely.
Marauders trash talk Syndicate 24/7 in global, even though the two factions own the same number of territories. Most of the Marauders are bad at PvP and they're carried by a few really good no-lifer players. It's the case of "Which faction is better at PvP?" and those people are asking because they want to be on the winning side, not because they're good. Syndicate overall seems pretty average, nobody really sticks out as either good or bad. As far as economics, Syndicate is running circles around Marauders. Probably because aforementioned Marauders are too busy shit talking all the time.
As time wears on, I already see a dwindling population. Amazon is not going to be able to merge servers due to guilds owning towns, unless they want to forcefully take away town ownership. NW launched with 170ish servers. And I have extreme doubts that they'll be able to maintain a healthy population on 95% of those. In other words, New World is going to become a great MMO for bad PvPers to be kings of dead servers.
Overall quality of players in terms of social capability and attitude is absolute shit, but from my time on PvP WoW servers this was no surprise. Everyone is untrusting at best and outright hostile at worst. Was farming the rock bears in Weaver's Fen and some level 60 decked out in full PvP gear demanded I duel him for rights to the farming spot. I just said "lol no" and the dude immediately launched into the usual spittle shower of insult flinging. Sorry bro, as a level 46 I'm not gonna duel a level 60 for rights to a farming spot when I know I'd lose, and I can just decline and keep mining the bears anyway. This is far from the only or even worst encounter and is pretty typical of games like this where PvP is a central focus.
Overall it seems Amazon is banking on the popularity of emergent gameplay and player run economies and stories as well as PvP rivalries. I don't see this game going very far. I figured it would be a good distraction til Endwalker FFXIV drops, but I'm already almost bored of it and am finding myself going back to playing FFXIV and trying to farm ultimates in Party Finder over spending another moment in New World.
The lack of race choice isn't always a bad thing, but it is when your human models are dull and boring, and the clothes are equally dull and boring. There's very little in the way of personal expression in your character design and clothing.
I'd give New World a begrudging 5.5/10, just barely above average. But average MMOs don't survive in this market when there's options like ESO, FFXIV and GW2, all great games in their own rights. Yes, I realize they're games with years of content piled on them, but I had more fun playing launch GW2 and ARR FFXIV than I do playing New World. By far.
If Amazon ever adds pay to win features, you can be sure that will expedite the "death" of the game, not in the sense that it will shut down, but Amazon will get most of their revenue from whales while everyone else will have left.