Is New World the right game for you?

New World leverages older MMORPG conventions to create something that feels new today, a stark contrast to other genre titles that transport players through a linear and unified experience. Instead, New World challenges players to forge their way through player-versus-player territory control, extensive crafting and collecting, and standard monster hunting. New World excels in the crafting and collecting department, with an incredibly satisfying and meaningful progression to making your gear and helping your friends who may specialize in crafts other than you.

Do you want to do it all? You can. With the New World skill system, you only need a character who can learn to do anything, with enough time and resources. Putting the finishing touches on your first master art feels fantastic. The player-driven economy feels lovely too, as unloading your bags at home for a few coins further fuels the engine. While the traditional monster mixing and quest is beyond mundane here, the other aspects of the game – crafting, collecting, progression of all kinds, and social focus – make the game feel engaging and exceptional today, even if These concepts were popular years ago on the MMO scene.

What is the New World, anyway? It is a low fantasy MMORPG that is based on skills. I don’t mean that you need It would be nice to play it, but it would improve at what it does, similar to something like Skyrim. Runescape is probably the preferred title to describe the authoring mechanisms behind New World. Players become adept at doing, not through traditional levels. Hit a rock and you will get better at hitting rocks and you can mine better rocks. Cut trees, harvest plants, fish; Whatever you want to do, every search pays to get excellent. Of course, with your packages full of raw materials, it’s time to turn them into processed products. I was a bit skeptical that the hooks here would last, but 80 hours after a crafting and harvesting approach, I still pause to harvest whatever is in sight. New World takes advantage of the dopamine hit “the numbers go up” like few games can. In fact, there’s no need to fight a lot in New World if this is your focus – you get excellent experience honing your craft, and most of my experience points come from being skilled in my creation endeavors. Skinning your first few wolves might not be worth it, but once you have some powerful gathering tools (which you made yourself, applying awesome modifiers) and taking on the bears over large swaths of leather and fur, you’ll start to see how the craft. lovely can be.

All of these systems feed off each other, encouraging players to dive into a multitude of crafting activities. A pickaxe of flint is not exciting. A stellar metal pickaxe that you handcrafted with a host of mods and that you can grind through resource nodes in moments makes running resources a zen experience. Making excellent equipment for yourself and your friends, whether it’s a mighty bag to store more while wandering the world or a magnanimous musket, feels great. If you’re into crafting and collecting, New World is an absolute game in this department, with systems that make your time and experience feel meaningful as you progress through levels and zones. The fantasy of living off the land and forging your path to greatness is often explored in survival games, but New World takes the concept and turns it into an insanely fun MMORPG bonanza.

Let’s talk about another game. Dark Age of Camelot is probably the gold standard in the MMORPG world for coordinated player-versus-player “kingdom versus kingdom” territory searches. Still, many players today were probably not around when it was a big problem. There are three factions in New World, and they fight for territory constantly, culminating in 50v50 wars for takeover of cities. While my first experience of warfare was quite intense, the small-scale skirmishes that occur in minute-by-minute play are still the best part of the PVP here. One note, it must be marked for PVP to participate, so all PVP is consensual and opt-in. Taking on a small group of players while harvesting 1000 flax can be more exciting than you might think, with musket balls and axes flying everywhere as you try to take out a player and make a strategic retreat to a tree line. Yes, PVP can turn into a zerg fest numbers game in the open world, but if things get too hot, you can easily turn off your PVP flag in town and go about your business. After all, those trees are not going to cut themselves down. These experiences are, like many others in New World, best with a friend or two. Whether or not you decide to live with a large company, you will participate in the turf war on your server. However, just like crafting and gathering, your level of commitment to this aspect of the game is up to you.

This is probably the right time to talk about another element of the game that is also rarer in the current MMORPG scene. Social aspects. Yes, you will have to talk to other players to form dungeon groups. Yes, there is a global chat where you can talk about everything. Yes, big companies (guilds) are sure to have tons and tons of drama. I was in a World of Warcraft guild that saw lives devastated by divorces and cheating, all fueled and linked to in-game activities. When you open up your game to social experiences, not everyone is going to talk about the fish they are fishing or the weather, and you may also find yourself being pushed into various settings with lots of yelling, posturing, and nonsense. You can of course disable in-game chat and not hop on Discord to engage in other activities, so some of this is optional, but overall it’s an aspect of the game that feels refreshing.

Obviously no one wants to hear someone’s horrible hatred of other players, but actual player-to-player communication has been overly sterilized in MMORPGs and online games in general. Well now is your chance to be a talkative bug again, and it feels great. Do something cool? Show it in chat or sell it! Make friends with a tank from the other faction to finish a dungeon. Maybe if you see that person later in the world in a PvP setting, head into sight of a ready sniper shot, keep your hand, and sneak into the bushes unseen. I did. After all, it was a good tank, even if it’s in that nasty guild we fight every day. In an online gaming world where many communication tools have been systematically removed to prevent bullying and promote safety, it almost feels like a radical act that encourages and encourages open dialogue between players, and it feels kind of nice to have. a social interaction within the game world. again. Apparently problem players are dealt with through a reporting system, which is easy to use.

So the traditional player against the environment, or killing ghosts and bears and all that, is probably the weakest element in the New World. Traditional dungeons and public quest portal battles offer some variations in addition to taking out hordes of boring enemies, but none of the standard enemy battles stand out compared to the experiences offered by other MMOs today. The enemies are uninteresting and you will fight the same skeletons and zombies for many of your days. The first time you see a giant crocodile is great, sure, but eventually, your mind realizes that that large creature is just a container for leather supplies.

I’ll be as clear as I can here. If you want to play a game with good missions and monster battles, this is not the game. Almost every mission is an uninspired quest or a “kill ten rats” fee. While the other elements of the game make this completely forgivable for me, it’s essential to know that you probably won’t have a satisfying traditional PvE experience here.

While criticisms of the lack of enemy variety and its fairly generic nature are justified, New World has beautiful scenery that makes its way into the entire experience of traveling through this dangerous land. Surprisingly, one element that stands out is the environmental design of each territory. Rooted in reality in terms of flora and fauna, it can be challenging to create defined areas that look just like it, but New World does it here, with zones ranging from thriving and pastoral new player areas to sunken swamps and haunted hills. . After a while, you can tell which territory you’re in just by aesthetics, which is pretty cool. The environments are beautiful, with day / night cycles creating incredible picturesque moments under the stars.

And, if for some reason, you’re entering a player-centric MMORPG for a story, you won’t get anything interesting there either. Games with player economies, open-world PVP, and turf battles often tell their stories in the moment-by-moment player experience, and New World is no different. It is the legendary fish that you catch and show to your guildmates. It is the 8 hour battle for a fort that creates a permanent rivalry between two companies and the way the server has to live with that constant conflict. And sometimes, it’s just a picturesque time in the woods where you kill a turkey to cook later. The story is told in every action you take and participate in, but it is not a traditional narrative that adds up to something worth committing to. The knowledge exists, but it is often attached to notes and ledgers that are not really convenient or fun to read.

New World takes an amalgamation of MMO features and mechanics of yesteryear and packages them in a way that feels new today. While it’s a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster in terms of the various directions a player can take, the nearly limitless freedom is incredibly welcoming in a world where MMO experiences have become increasingly linear. If you like crafting and collecting with strong progression systems, New World is a must-have game. If you have a few friends (or a lot of them) and you love player-versus-player server conflicts and a bit of drama, New World is a must-have game. If you want a great story or interesting missions, New World is not your game. If you’re an old-school MMO gamer who has lamented the direction of the genre for the past 15 years, New World is a must-play. Now if you’ll excuse me, there is stellar metal in mine and I am almost ready to make a new bag.