[Megathread] Amazon's New World MMO

[oplawlz]

Did it though? Did 1.0 World of Warcraft really have more content? 1.12 sure. But 1.0? I doubt it.

While I'm still loving NW I have to say that yeah, even 1.0 wow had more content even if only because it had an actual 1-60 questing experience. Not saying it's necessary for NW, they're very different games, but you could potentially roll 4 different characters and have like 60-80% unique questing experience on each of them (two horde and two alliance). For people like me that would be perfectly content just making new characters with different builds and lvling to max over and over again that's a pretty big chunk of content. New world won't even let you make more than two characters for some reason.

[cuafpr]

for people that have researched it more than me.. is it worth saving the 50% first-time home buyer discount for the high-end home or go ahead and grab one for 2500 for the perks/recall point?

[LazarusLong]

War Mode is purely tied to your character though, not really anything else (unless I've missed it). NW has more levers to pull than just changes to character perks for being on underpopulated factions and engaging in PvP, they could add bonuses to the underpopulated factions themselves that would benefit both characters or the overall faction, they could alter rules and incentives for territory bonuses to try to encourage territory changing hands more rather than endlessly holding territory forever (i.e. it's in your interest to lose X territory and take Y territory due to diminishing returns on bonuses for holding X territory until you lose it).

Mechanically they have a lot of options that are likely going to be more effective than simply giving each faction more lore, which as we're continuing to see likely isn't going to do a lot since so many folks either strongly dislike the writing/lore/story (what little there is) in the game or are simply ignoring it altogether.

Here is the thing. If war is not fun for the majority of the PVE-oriented player base (hence why they prefer to stack one faction and remove hurdles for their gameplay). In this case, adding more hassle as diminishing returns will 1) simply piss off players 2) force them to trade territories without actually engaging the system that much.

[potis]

So many extra pages, is the complaint the same as alpha?

That the game is literally empty for the standards of 2021 and its PvP or uninstall, with their attempt to add PvE in the last 10 months because it was an obvious irrelevant chore of a game otherwise, there is so many professions and run around you can do before it gets monotonous.

[Yriel]

What does "faction fantasy" even mean? I mean they've each got their themes - purps are the witch doctor sneaky people or whatever, green are the warlike fighters or whatever, yellow are the religious faction. They've got their themes and flavors, but they're more a means to the end of territory combat and PvP.

I guess i could be something more akin to old Dark Age of Camelot, where each of the three factions have their own unique zones, classes, abilities, items, races and looks. People joined a faction there often just they wanted to play that realm, no matter how strong it was in the RVR/PVP map.
And yes, even there was the trend to join the biggest faction but the others had more pull, identity- and gameplay-wise.

Hold on here. I am not disputing that a quest text exists, but that is different than a narrative. And I legitimately did not know any of these games had a "story" because it was meaningless to the gameplay as & when I played these games.

What happens to the gameplay in ESO because of the story? I hit max level in ESO & GW2 (ages ago) and I don't recall anything involved with a narrative affecting gameplay.

By your definition, do games with narratives even exist? I can ignore the story in pretty much every game and still play it to the end if i want to.

[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.

[crusadernero]

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.

Agree on this post. Im lvl 45 and havent logged into the game in 3 days now, and I dont want to either. The game just feels shallow and thin, so I returned to ESO. Amazon really gotta be on the frontfoot here regarding whats coming next.

[Usernameforforums]

No it isn't and people need to stop making this comparison, Runescape actually has a full fledged endgame (and tons of it).

(example of one small part of that endgame)


New World and Runescape isn't even close to being like each other. Just because you can cut a tree doesn't make NW like Runescape.

New World lacks content (not just endgame content) and that is due to the fact it was originally made to be a PVP focused MMO.

Runescape didnt have its first boss till a whole year and 8-9 months after it was released and god wars dungeon wasnt released until 2007. Yeah, runescape has tons of content now but at a similar point of its life cycle its lacking tremendously compared to new world. Let the game live a bit. The content will come, it did with runescape....

[Nyel]

Ice gauntlet doesn't sound too bad at least - but comparing this game to vanilla (which I find myself doing a lot) - the sound design is far behind

But it's only for magic and some melee weapons. Gathering and several other weapons (musket) sound great, but the magic skills in this game are something you'd hear in a Star Wars movie 40 years ago, absolute trash tier when it comes to visuals and sound effects.

- - - Updated - - -

Hold on here. I am not disputing that a quest text exists, but that is different than a narrative. And I legitimately did not know any of these games had a "story" because it was meaningless to the gameplay as & when I played these games.

What happens to the gameplay in ESO because of the story? I hit max level in ESO & GW2 (ages ago) and I don't recall anything involved with a narrative affecting gameplay.

I am not interested in brushing up on the story of any of these games, but I appreciate the link and effort. I am not that interested in video game stories though.

However, I am slightly shocked by the interpretation of quest text as a narratively driven gameplay experience. Which was what that other post seemed to suggest and why SWTOR came prominently to mind. Because you have to do the story in SWTOR, not to level per see, but to access the gameplay modes and attributes such as the companions that directly tie into the gameplay.

If a quest text is a "narrative" then basically every MMORPG has a "story". That seems loose and poorly conceived to me.

GW2 at the day of its launch had an overarching narrative - and do you know what? It was different for each of the five races for half of the game! And those were voice acted quests with scenarios and in game cinematics on top of that.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personal_story

- - - Updated - - -

So many extra pages, is the complaint the same as alpha?

That the game is literally empty for the standards of 2021 and its PvP or uninstall, with their attempt to add PvE in the last 10 months because it was an obvious irrelevant chore of a game otherwise, there is so many professions and run around you can do before it gets monotonous.

Basically yes as not much has changed from Alpha 2020 -> Beta 2021 -> launch besides the addition of more copy & paste content.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

The game is basically losing 50k primetime players per day at the moment as you can see here: https://www.newworldstatus.com/ (we can ignore October 13 as there was maintenance until 10PM for most of the EU players). They have over 600 (!) active servers at the moment by the way.

Otherwise your review is pretty spot on and very similar to the reviews you find in the official forum or elsewhere. The sad thing is, this game has a good basis, but almost no path was followed til the end. They started with a good idea and somehow abandoned it halfway there.

- - - Updated - - -

Agree on this post. Im lvl 45 and havent logged into the game in 3 days now, and I dont want to either. The game just feels shallow and thin, so I returned to ESO. Amazon really gotta be on the frontfoot here regarding whats coming next.

I had the same issue, I didn't play from Friday to Thursday. I wanted to give it another shot with a new weapon and it sparked my interest again, at least a little bit. Maybe try another weapon. If you're playing the same weapon from level 1, this game will get boring very quickly as there's basically zero progress. I changed from Fire Staffe to Musket and I'm fairly enjoying that shake up now, but I fear it won't last.

[Lollis]

Runescape didnt have its first boss till a whole year and 8-9 months after it was released and god wars dungeon wasnt released until 2007. Yeah, runescape has tons of content now but at a similar point of its life cycle its lacking tremendously compared to new world. Let the game live a bit. The content will come, it did with runescape....

Yeah, sorry, no. Using release timeframes from other products is never an excuse for a lack of content. Amazon has had 15 years of WoW to look at, it's had 20 years of Runescape to look at.

Would a brand new car manufacturer be excused for not having seatbelts when it took over 30 years for the first ones to appear as a factory option?

[rhorle]

Would a brand new car manufacturer be excused for not having seatbelts when it took over 30 years for the first ones to appear as a factory option?

Yes. Not for seatbelts but car manufactures often cut features from low end models. Seatbelts are mandated by law which is why it is a poor comparison since very little game design is required by law to exist (some is required not to exist like loot boxes in some areas). For example the cheapest ford maverick does not have power seats even though my 2002 van had them. There is should be some room given on release of a new game and holding every developer to veteran products sucks. Should some basic lessons be learned? For sure.

New World is average. It does some things good, it does some things bad. What will matter is how quickly they fix all of the bugs and other issues and how quickly they create new content.

[potis]

Basically yes as not much has changed from Alpha 2020 -> Beta 2021 -> launch besides the addition of more copy & paste content.

Yeah, it was mostly rhetorical , i really wish people would stop being so simple and accept they will never get the same feeling they got out of WoW 15 years ago, it gets exhausting watching so many games fail because people game hop and destroy them.

And so many identity issues with every single MMO coming out, simply wanting to get as much $$ from hungry MMO players searching for their dose of nostalgia.

[BeepBoo]

i really wish people would stop being so simple and accept they will never get the same feeling they got out of WoW 15 years ago, it gets exhausting watching so many games fail because people game hop and destroy them.

I've gotten plenty of repeat "new and novel" feelings from single player RPGs I've experienced. Both before and after skyrim. Granted, it's been a few years since anything delivered in that market. Cyberpunk was my most recent hopeful, but the initial shitshow and the price of new graphics cards made me decide to wait for "GOTY" steam sale in the near future.

I digress. There are plenty of genres that manage to recapture and properly stroke ye olde nostalgia feels. I fail to see why an MMO can't, with the exception that no one seems to want to make games the way wow is run any more (probably because everyone is focused on bleeding the gambling-addicted asian market dry with gachas).

[Gaidax]

it gets exhausting watching so many games fail because people game hop and destroy them.

Ah, of course, it's the players who are wrong.

*insert out of touch Skinner meme here*

[potis]

I've gotten plenty of repeat "new and novel" feelings from single player RPGs I've experienced. Both before and after skyrim. Granted, it's been a few years since anything delivered in that market. Cyberpunk was my most recent hopeful, but the initial shitshow and the price of new graphics cards made me decide to wait for "GOTY" steam sale in the near future.

I digress. There are plenty of genres that manage to recapture and properly stroke ye olde nostalgia feels. I fail to see why an MMO can't, with the exception that no one seems to want to make games the way wow is run any more (probably because everyone is focused on bleeding the gambling-addicted asian market dry with gachas).

Dont get me wrong, it all depends on the player, if its people seeking that leveling experience where you take 1.5 years to do what you are supposed to do in the first month of the game, props to you for wanting that experience, ESO/FFXIV/GW2 all have that in terms of storylines and no actual progression in the endgame part, or very limited, which is okay.

The problem comes when people cant understand like with FFXIV, they are playing the 7 years after result, it failed and closed down once, and now it gained momentum cause people need to shit on WoW, gave it a chance while doing so, and they found something they were looking for.

New World of course wont be fulfilling, its a game from one of the worst capitalistic companies in the world, in its embryo stage with a massive change of content because it was empty as hell, expecting people to just PvP in 2020 about factions and building houses? What.

- - - Updated - - -

Ah, of course, it's the players who are wrong.

*insert out of touch Skinner meme here*

But it is the players who are wrong as i was answering the other dude, expecting multiple years of whatever content they wish for out of a newly released game is getting boring, literally the same since like 2010 or so.

No, there wont be a game that can compete with the big names on the get go, the $$ and dev experience dont exist.

Like me, i forgot GW2 exists, the 2-3 years ago, bought both expansions and the Living World etc, got myself tons of story content cause that period of life i was in the mood for that, but it was content already 2 years old and the then released second expansion that gave me so much.

Its the same with the Battlefield players expecting bug-free BF2042 release and proper Anti-hack, after half a decade of no such thing.

[Usernameforforums]

Yeah, sorry, no. Using release timeframes from other products is never an excuse for a lack of content. Amazon has had 15 years of WoW to look at, it's had 20 years of Runescape to look at.

Would a brand new car manufacturer be excused for not having seatbelts when it took over 30 years for the first ones to appear as a factory option?

Then your logic is flawed cuz the people at RuneScape should have looked at Tibia and Ultima online which had plenty of content at the time of runescapes release... its a great foundation for whats to come just as runescape classic set its foundation. Nega-Nancys dont be so negative.

[Gaidax]

But it is the players who are wrong as i was answering the other dude, expecting multiple years of whatever content they wish for out of a newly released game is getting boring, literally the same since like 2010 or so.

Players are not wrong, you're talking like some detached Blizz exec. Imagine that in 2021 players expect a tad more than baseline crap when you have hundreds other games around with great stuff to offer.

This complete out of touch thinking. Nobody cares that 20 years ago this would be "fine", it's not in 2021 and that's what counts. Nobody cares that Runescape did not have much content 20 years ago - it's irrelevant, because when it released you did not have Steam at the ready with hundreds to thousands of games to insta bail to.

[rhorle]

Players are not wrong, you're talking like some detached Blizz exec. Imagine that in 2021 players expect a tad more than baseline crap when you have hundreds other games around with great stuff to offer.

You might have a point if people didn't subjectively changes those expectations based on the company. A small indie developer? Expectations are low. A huge AAA studio? Expectations are high. It isn't doesn't take being a Blizzard executive to understand that players can be wrong. That they can demand to much out of new games, or new studios. It is wrong to label all things as having to great of expectations though.

New games don't need everything in at launch in order to succeed. They just need to have good bones to build on and a good plan to continue growth. Look at NMS. How much it has changed over the years since a problematic launch. Could that stuff have been in at start? Sure but maybe it would be borderline vaporware like Star Citizen. Instead they kept building on the game to make it into something great.

[Gaidax]

You might have a point if people didn't subjectively changes those expectations based on the company.

Are you implying that players are in the wrong to expect something more out of a high profile MMO launch of the last few years from studio swimming in big daddy's $$ no less that was hyped up to high heaven? Amazon pumped more $$ into hyping this game than many studios have budget to even make games.

That's what brought all the players who took the bait in, but you can't blame the players for bailing after they realized the game is pretty graphics and little more than that once the novelty wears off.

Again... how the players are at fault here? Eh?

[Edge-]

Are you implying that players are in the wrong to expect something more out of a high profile MMO launch of the last few years from studio swimming in big daddy's $$ no less that was hyped up to high heaven?

From a studio whose last game went so poorly they unreleased it to rework it before canceling it? I mean, they have no track record and if you were "hyped to high heaven" that was very much a "you" (the royal you) problem.

It's a bigger profile MMO, but it was pretty clear how limited the PvE would be and what the game was going to be about overall. Just because they're an Amazon studio and likely have more flexible budgets doesn't mean they have billions to drop on this game or anything, budgets still exist.

Amazon pumped more $$ into hyping this game than many studios have budget to even make games.

Uh...no, probably not. They did a lot of digital advertising (not super expensive) and they sponsored a bunch of streamers on launch day (more expensive, but very routine for a lot of major game launches) and that's about it. No huge launch event stunts in Time Square or anything eating up budget, no massive multi-building banners at E3, etc.

That's what brought all the players who took the bait in

Or were just interested in the game and aren't expecting it to be the second coming of the savior because we didn't let our expectations get out of whack with reality.

Again... how the players are at fault here? Eh?

Projecting what they hope/want the game to be rather than accepting it for what it is. No-lifing the game and then complaining about "unfinished/lack of content" after spending 200+ hours in it in a few weeks.

There's always going to be player dropoff for any MMO, that's expected and fine. That's the folks hitting their 30's and figuring out the game isn't what they were hoping for and dropping off.