It’s coming close to a month now since Amazon Games’ New World has been released, and I have put roughly 30 hours into the game (although I’m unsure if that counts queueing time or not, to be honest). To give a bit of context, I’ve not even gotten into “end game” yet; I have two characters I’ve been playing. My first one was on a server that, shall we say, had a lengthy queue, so I started playing on another one. When that all normalized, I’ve been flopping between them — one is more melee/tanky and the other is more healer based. One is a little over level 30, the other just over 20. So there is a lot about the game I have not experienced… well, hopefully.
I feel it is safe to say that I’m enjoying at least aspects of New World. Rarely do I put more than 10 hours into a game if I’m not having some fun. And I’m not the only one. While I know that the game had pretty a pretty insane all-time peak at launch (913,027 according to Steam Charts), it’s been just a little shy of 500,000 as of late. And I have to agree with Josh Strife Hayes (ref); some will see the difference between launch day and this weekend as a loss. I mean, that’s almost half the numbers… but some of the things they are forgetting is that (1) people took time off work/life to play the game during launch, (2) people abused methods to stay logged in during the beginning, and (3) it’s only been three weeks, not everyone in a grinding machine. So if you look at the current number, roughly 500,000, that is more than respectable. But, we won’t know how successful New World is for about six or more months. Part of that will be to see its staying power (how long do people stick with it), and a lot of that will be based on how Amazon Games moves forward with updates.
Is it fun? Yes. Is it the best game ever? No. But I doubt we’ll ever see an MMO that has recently launched as the best MMO ever. The launch of an MMO is much like your character’s progression; it is just the start. The launch is usually the foundation it is all built upon and, if it has good bones and the development team does it right, it can ultimately become a real powerhouse with staying potential.
What I like about New World
I am enjoying New World. It looks to have a good foundation and hits on some things, at least well. There are things I would do differently but, if we’re honest, there isn’t a gamer or a game developer alive who would ever say that an MMO is entirely perfect and they wouldn’t change a thing. But, let’s start with what I like about New World so far.
- I haven’t had any real technical issues and rarely any latency issues (graphical or network). Of course, there have been a few hiccups, but nothing has overly affected my game time (outside of the initial queues, of course). I’ve had one hard crash (when exiting an expedition), but I haven’t seen any rubberbanding and, outside of a bit hitching in a city, I haven’t run into any other major performance issues. I know MMOs out that have been out a lot longer with smaller concurrent numbers that I can’t say that about.
- Combat is… fun? Fine. This will also be in my other section because I find it a bit limiting, but overall, it seems pretty solid. I do both melee and ranged combat, and it’s relatively solid, even if it’s not overly deep.
- Gathering. I almost put crafting, but I haven’t crafted much. I have gathered so much, though. I mainly focus on mining, harvesting, and skinning, and I like how most things are easy to spot. I definitely notice ore well before it pops up on my compass, and most of the plants you want to harvest stand out from their environments. Skinning, well, you kill so many skinnable creatures that it feels wasteful not to gather their skins. But I do spend a lot of my time gathering. Usually, I’m running to a quest or an area, and then… oh, shiny, and off I’m taking the long route because I keep running across new stuff to gather.
- That it’s hard to have alt-itis on a server. Granted, I do wish there was more freedom, but I can see the reason in a game around Faction Warfare. I would rather they locked me into a faction that I cannot change on a server unless I remove all my characters first… but I can live with this since you don’t need to have multiple characters on a server.
What I would do differently
Of course, there are things I would do differently. Not saying it’s better; we all know I’m not the world’s best designer, and I don’t have the insight the Amazon Games team does on why they’ve chosen options they have. But, as with any designer (or gamer), there are things I’d do differently. Some of my main ones would be.
- Taking some nods towards and lessons learned from Dark Ages of Camelot (DAOC). When it comes to Faction vs. Faction or Realm vs. Realm combat, they are high on that list (if not the #1 spot).
- Going with #1, splitting up your Factions from the start. While I play Covenant (I mean, I sort of have to as Ashen Temper, heh), I don’t really have any Faction pride, so to speak. I am constantly in cities with other Faction members, questing with them, running across them in the wilds, etc. To me, Factions feel a bit more like a Guild (granted, NW does have a Guild system, too). In DAOC, I played mainly as Midgard, and there was some true rivalry between them and Albion and Hibernia. I look at the Syndicate and Marauders more like other guilds in my town than factions I need to push back from my realm or zone.
- Speaking of realms and zones, while I understand the aspect of taking over territory, there is no home base to fall back upon. This goes with the former, but not having a city or territory always in the hands of a specific faction doesn’t give you a place to regroup. While not as terrible as losing a guild city in Shadowbane (prior to when I added Sea Dog’s Rest), you don’t feel any stability or a place to “fall back” should your faction do poorly.
- While I feel combat is solid, I do feel it is limiting. Having only six (6) abilities in rotation (some of which have a healthy refresh time, especially early game) doesn’t leave for a lot of reactive combat. I don’t necessarily want a quarter of my screen covered with abilities and spells, but I’d like to be able to approach combat a bit more than I can now and have better reactions based on what my opponents are doing. Also, I’d tone down some of the effects on particular abilities and spells… you get a few of them running together and it’s a bit hard to see what is actually going on.
- More variety, especially in regards to NPC enemies and cities and micro-zones. While I know (hope) this will change over time as they add more content to the game, this gets a bit old quickly. And also, something I find a bit surprising considering it is Amazon Games when considering their budget. However, I’m unsure if it was as high as Jason Schreier posted earlier this year. Making content isn’t cheap, but I would have thought more would have been put into world-building assets… although I think maybe in part due to the pivot, I believe the game took from being more survival to more MMO (more on that in a few).
- A better character naming system. This one I find even more surprising considering they went with a worldwide system versus a server or regional one. I was lucky to get “Ashen Temper,” but someone else got “AshenTemper” (why, I don’t know). But it felt a bit limiting and, if I was designing it, knowing it was going for a worldwide “lock,” I feel like I would have come up with something a bit… different.
- This one is super knit-picky, but it annoys me: A loading screen image when I first launch the game. I sometimes have to wait 30 seconds before I know for a fact that the game is loading. Just throw up a cheesy “New World” logo with a great slogan until the actual game launches.
Is it a survival game?
I really enjoy survival games. I put way too many hours into games like 7 Days To Die and Valheim, for example. To be clear, I don’t believe Amazon Games ever actually used the phrase survival game in any of its marketing (or did they? That could be a fake, but a Google search seems to lend some credibility), many of those initially excited about it were under the impression it was due to some of the features and the way the game was talked about. And some of their features very much feel like they were at least influenced by survival and sandbox games.
To be clear, I wasn’t a hardcore follower of New World’s early development, so that I could be way off-base on this. But it sounds like the game did somewhat of a pivot based on player feedback and looking for more mass-market, which isn’t bad. But I wonder if that may play a part in certain aspects that we see today; in a survival game, you don’t need the same variety and content, especially a multiplayer one. Valheim is an excellent example of that.
Should you play it?
I know some of you already are, so that you can skip this part. But, if you’re wondering about playing it and unsure, I would recommend looking at what New World actually is. If you’re looking for a deep and complex combat system, or a deep story-driven narrative, or elaborate questing and raiding… then probably not.
But, if the concept of the game sounds fun, I would give it a try. Especially if you’re like me and have that whole “gotta collect them all” when it comes to gathering things that can be used to craft things… even if you don’t find yourself crafting as much, heh! It’s a buy-to-play versus a subscription-based game, so it’s only the one-time hit to your virtual wallet. The servers are stable now and, while I haven’t run into any queueing issues, the populations look healthy (at least the servers I play on). Now that the game is almost a month old, things have calmed down and have become a bit more stable and less chaotic. I’ve already sunk a decent amount of hours into it, and I feel like I’m close to getting my money’s worth out of it.
If you’re still unsure but feel like it has potential, give it three to six months. I am assuming there will be a lot of activity as we get closer to the holiday season and people have more free time but, definitely by the end of March 2022, we’ll have a good idea as to how Amazon Games has supported New World and where its short-term future is, at least. Again, the launch of an MMO is more like the “end of the beginning,” almost the prologue. Let’s see where it goes from there.
Oh, and if you’re looking for someone who keeps up and makes great videos about New World, I’d highly recommend Demone Kim. Not only are they informative, @DemoneKim seems truly nice and motivational.