9 Months Ago New World Was A Huge Hit On Steam And Was Considered An MMO Hope – Where Does It Stand Today?

On June 22, 2022By Garmin Philip

In September 2021 the new MMORPG New World was released. Over 900,000 players logged in at the same time on release weekend. But the hype quickly died down. Although the game gets regular updates, there is still no great interest. What has changed and where does the game still have problems?

How did the release of New World go?

New World triggered a huge hype at the start. The initially 63 EU servers were hopelessly overcrowded. There were queues for hours. In addition, over 120 new servers were opened in the first week to accommodate more people.
At its peak, the MMORPG had 913,634 concurrent players on the Sunday after release (via SteamDB). Many had high hopes for the game. But the number of players quickly decreased again. After just one month, the peak had halved.

Players criticized the release of the uninspired quests and long level phases, the clunky combat system and dozens of bugs that caused a lot of frustration. Hardcore players also complained about the missing endgame and long walks after just a few days.

Also, many players had very different expectations of New World. After the big announcement of the switch from PvP to PvE, many were hoping for a theme park game. But they weren’t impressed at all by the “survival aesthetic” and the lack of a story.

Overall, New World seemed unfinished, despite several postponements. One should have given the MMORPG more time, said many players. But almost 9 months have passed since the release and there have been a number of updates. How is New World now?

Major updates brought new dungeons, PvP arenas, and a clear gear system

What’s the biggest change to New World since release? The biggest change probably went through the equipment in the endgame. Everything with an armor value of 500 or more was initially completely tied to crafting and random drops. The system behind the drops, the watermark system, was opaque. Somehow you stacked a chance for loot in the background and if you got a drop, the chance would be restacked. However, the game did not explain this.

The system is now very transparent:

Each gear slot has its own skill level. If you increase the competence, then you can get better drops from opponents. In the meantime, a high level of competence must also be achieved so that the endgame equipment can even develop its full power. Between armor 500 and 600, gear is scaled to a midpoint between armor and proficiency. This is to prevent that starch can simply be bought.
You can definitely increase competence with plaster casts, dungeons, PvP battles or crafting. There are also random drops that can also level up the skill.
In addition, the equipment has been expanded: If the equipment value used to be 600, the equipment value has been 625 since the big January patch.

What changed about the dungeons? Dungeon fans were also provided with new content. In January, the mutations reminiscent of Mythic + in WoW appeared. This gave players 10 new levels of difficulty for selected dungeons.

In March, the new Heart of Storms dungeon was released. In it, the story of the main story is completed and there are crisp and varied boss fights. In July, the next dungeon barnacles and black powder will appear.

Dungeons also got some Quality of Life changes, including better rewards, many bug fixes, and easier ways to get dungeon entry orbs. With the July patch, however, the orbs should be completely abolished. In addition, the dungeon finder will be introduced, which will make it easier to find groups.

Everything you need to know about the New World endgame in 2 minutes

What’s new in PvP? At release, PvP was in a difficult stage:

The wars almost couldn’t be played at all due to bugs and lags
The outpost storm alternative was disabled for many weeks due to bugs
Lacked incentives to enable PvP in the open world

In the meantime the bugs have been fixed and the wars work reasonably well. In addition, the rewards for PvP in the open world have been increased. A new PvP currency also came into play in May.

You can earn a number of rewards via Azoth Salt, whether you’re fighting wars, storming outposts, or fighting in the open world. However, it primarily supports the 3v3 arenas, which were also introduced in May. Controlled PvP can now be played with them.

What else has changed? The list of patch notes is long, but we have summarized some highlights for you:

There are two new weapons, the Doom Gauntlets and the Blunderbuss
You now run 10% faster on trails, and the Azoth cost of fast travel has been significantly reduced
The daily cooldowns got a fixed time (always at 5:00 a.m.)
You can now use your inventory while walking
The level time from levels 20 to 50 has been reduced
There are now rewards for leveling a profession past level 200
Warehouses can now be controlled and used globally from anywhere
Housing taxes have been reduced
There have been adjustments to the combat system with shortened animations and better transitions
There are also thousands of bug fixes

In addition, many servers have now been merged to keep the population reasonably high.

There are still too many bugs and too many problems

Is New World a perfect MMORPG now? No, far from it. The developers have addressed many of the original criticisms, but despite this, New World still has many problems.

The combat system in particular suffers from delays in the use of abilities, problems with the animations and bugs that occur with individual skills. Some of these bugs have been around for months.

The problems with the combat system have a particularly negative effect on PvP. Another reason why many avoid Outpost Storm or Arenas is the frustration of losing a battle due to technical issues.

But even apart from the combat system, not everything is problem-free:

Some perks are bugged – especially in PvP
Some opponents in dungeons can be exploited
There is a bug around the stamina required for dodging
There are dozens of small bugs in the game, be it monsters, territories or the UI in Outpost Storm

The Valentine’s weapons in February, which had to be taken out of the shop immediately after the release due to bugs, were also indicative of the problems.

Are only bugs the problem? no The hardcore gamers in particular are eagerly awaiting new non-PvP content. After all, New World wrote itself on the flag to be a game for PvE fans.

For many, New World’s strength lay in its atmospheric world and crafting system. However, neither received any significant updates, also because “basic features” such as the PvP arenas were only implemented later. Something like that would have been good for the MMORPG when it was released.

The numbers are falling and there is no sign of a trend reversal

So what about New World? In the last 24 hours, 17,900 players were online at the same time in Peak (via SteamDB). That’s enough for 4th place in the most played MMORPGs on Steam – behind Lost Ark, FFXIV and ESO. However, ESO and FFXIV have a large number of their players outside of Valve’s platform.

However, there is currently no sign of a reversal. Even a free weekend in April was a complete disappointment.

While New World ironed out many mistakes from launch, it still has four major problems:

There are still too many bugs and new bugs are added with every update.
The combat system is still not optimal.
The MMORPG has a bad reputation and nothing is currently happening to improve the reputation.
It’s missing a big feature or something special to bring players and media back to New World. Because everything New World has gotten so far is standard content that other MMORPGs also offer.

Are there any positives? Yes, the communication and dedication of the developers is to be commended. In the last few months in particular, videos and blog posts have been published that give insights into the ideas and the future of the game.

There was also praise for the developers going into streams from Asmongold or other Twitch streamers to play the new dungeon. The developers also presented their gameplay on their own YouTube channel:

New World isn’t WoW, but it can be fun

Is it still worth getting started in June 2022? Anyone looking for an MMORPG with an unusual and tactical action-combat system and not expecting a classic theme park game à la WoW should definitely take a look at New World.

Especially the atmosphere of the game world, the different ways to level up and the dungeons make a lot. If you don’t have a problem with grind and PvP in the endgame, you can get your money’s worth here.

I myself have now had over 600 hours of play and many good experiences in the game. Above all, I am fascinated by the game world, the constant carrot in front of my nose and the fights, which differ greatly from the big MMORPGs like WoW or FFXIV.

But New World still can’t keep up with the strongest games in the genre at the moment – there are too many errors, too little content and too few incentives to play the old content again and again. It is currently uncertain whether a trend reversal will ever succeed. Possibly only an addon with a large marketing campaign could cause a hype again.

How do you see New World at the moment? What would the game need to get for you to check back in?

By the way, if you want to know where the best MMORPGs are currently, you should take a look at our tier list:

Where are the 50 biggest MMORPGs currently? The Animal List 2022

Reference-mein-mmo.de