We had the pleasure to test out the closed beta of New world for over 10 days and get to a decent level in the game. Unfortunately i didn’t make it to max level due to server instability and lost a few days. Nevertheless it was enough for me to get mixed feelings for this game. I usually don’t do reviews but this game is one of the few that the whole planet was waiting for.
I will try to break down my feelings about this game in sections.
World & Audio(9/10)
The world in this game is beautiful. The areas are stunning and make you want to go out there and explore it. I did not get bored running around finding new areas and wonderful views and sunsets. The audio fits in very well and enhances the experience. The towns are also very good and they are a joy to walk around. The ambience of the town is there you can feel the town vibes, whether there are a lot of people or just a couple.
The terrain is also designed in a way that you can access 90% of the land and use it to your tactical advantage, and I see a lot of good ganging and abuse in pvp. In PVE though thus far is causing a lot of problems with the npc getting stuck and exploited. One thing I missed while traveling this world was a minimap. There is a compass to give you direction but the quest pin number cna change and it can get confusing. A mini map would be good to keep track of terrain to navigate out of dead end mountains as well as prevent you from opening the map 1000 times.
One bad thing in the audio is that there is really not a lot of variation in the music and after 1-2 days it gets very stale. So this part of the game I will give it a 9/10 despite the lack of more than 2 music tracks since most of us will put up our own music after a while. I am sure that those 2 things I spotted can easily be fixed and get a 10/10.
Gathering and Crafting (7/10)
Gathering is done in such a nice way that I have to say it is very addictive and it works well in game. There is nothing more to say except it is great. The Crafting is also very good with enough items to craft without getting overwhelming to the player.
However this Crafting system is not perfect. There are a few things that alot might find annoying such as the fact that there is no craft all button and you have to keep slighting the bar from zero to 100 every single time in every single item. On top of that you can make the same item with 3-4 different items which is not bad, however you end up having a lot of gathered items just sitting there. Space is limited in both your bags and the bank. You can buy a house and add chests for more space.
You can also pull items from different towns as long as you have gold and your faction owns the town.
Furthermore I see one more issue here and that is that you need to upgrade the town to upgrade the workstations. This happens by adding upgrades to town boards and people run quests to level up. After hitting max level this will slow down as I personally would like to deal with the pvp aspect. Not sure if there will be a lot that will keep grinding mats and mobs to keep the stations up, maybe there will be. In beta my town was degraded 4 times lol.
The UI is very good and useful with the right amount of filters to help navigate to the items you want. Not really anything really bad to mention here.
PVE (7/10)
PVE at the first glance looks very good and engaching. After a few levels and one to two maps changes the problems start.
Quest NPCs are very similar to almost identical.
Quests giving NPCs have very little voice lines, which for a game of this magnitude does not feel very good for a trillion company made game. There are also almost no cut scenes to be drawn in a story.
Enemy NPCs are limited. It is the same NPC with different levels. The variety is very limited and on top of that the level 1 wolf does the same moves, attacks as the level 60 wolf. So if you learn to fight one you can fight all of them with our eyes closed. This gets stale fast.
NPCs Pathing needs a lot of work. Not to mention the aggro and the release timers. You can aggro enemies from miles away and they chase you in some cases all the way to the end of the region map. This is an issue that will be addressed and fixed, however that is basic, and it seems this game is starting to fail in the basics.
Dungeons are very good with enough enemies, interesting mechanisms, puzzles, and a lot of loot to make it enjoyable and rewarding. I enjoyed the Dungeons so much. I wish I made it to higher levels to try all of them but the 3 dungeons I did were amazing. There people at the gate cna start the dungeon with the orb and the other 2 are summoned.
On the bad side of dungeons we have no dungeon finder and we are back on LFG chat. On top of that you need an orb for each dungeon to enter where 1 / 5 people in the party need to have it to open the door to the dungeon. No orb, no dungeon. They are craftable but still I ended up in a few full parties that we had no orbs and disbanded. No one in beta at least wanted to farm mats and make orbs.
Traveling while pve-ing is running all over the place or use Azoth resources to pay for fast travel. This comes from quests and gathering. Personally I never had enough to go around, which indicates that this might be an item that will end up in the cash shop.
PVP (6/10)
The PVP is pretty good. I have to say that i did not experience the “end game” pvp which is the fort 50 vs 50 fights or the arena 20 vs 20. Nevertheless we did a lot of open world fights in forts with 50 vs 50 on my server and it felt good as long as you were in a party. Solo PVP is very viable but as always be prepared to get ganged. The main problems I encountered with pvp are the following.
- LAG – the main issue was lag.
- No hard CC for solo play.
- Impossible to get a group – No one is actually looking in chat for groups.
- Chat UI is bad and hinders communications.
- Voice chat can get confusing when I walk next to people and start listening to 5-8 different languages on EU servers.
PvP seems like it can be a lot of fun in guilds roaming and defending attacking forts while allowing room for solo play.
Other issues
Before we go on this section allow me to say that I know this is beta and it’s bound to have issues. However there is no guarantee that the issues identified in betas will be fixed before launch or at all. The only guarantee is that they were identified.
Server stability and queue times for log in. This can be a game breaker for many people. In every MMORPG ever launched alpha, beta, and launch has lag and log in issues on starting day. How come a trillion dollar company was not prepared? That just doesn’t make me feel confident. A lot of my viewers accept this as being a normal thing to happen. I have to disagree and protest. I want the companies to respect my time and even more when I pay to test the game for them and not the other way around.
Character creation is very generic. Enough to make some things but still not there for a company of this size, resources in the most anticipated mmorpg in the world. I mean Eve online has better character creation.
Cash shop is the main worry I have for this game. I have a tendency not to trust companies when it comes to money. Despite the statements of not having any items that help progress faster, win etc. I remain cautious about that. I am ok when the only thing you can buy are skins, mounts, effects, emotes etc. A few of the items I am worried about ending up there are:
Azoth for fast travel, respec and crafting,
Repair parts which you get by breaking down items.
Extra bag slots.
Weight limiters to carry more gathered materials for limited time etc.
Conclusions (7/10)
The game feels good but somehow not there yet. Slightly above average. I expected more. Definitely not a game matching Amazon’s capabilities. The Potential is there but not there yet. One major problem and this is what most people can’t get their finger on is the fact that the game is average. Average despite the high scoring in individual categories. This happens because it is not 100% good at one thing. It is not 100% pvp focused nor 100% PVE focused and instead of doing exceedingly well in one it ends up giving an average overall experience of the player.
A lot will need to change in this game to bring the potential to flourish. Let’s hope they will.
Another thing that worries me is that IF this is the game, then in some areas might get stale really fast. Examples:
Dungeons. I want to farm them for gear since they are random drops. I have to farm a certain number of mats to craft orbs then do the dungeons. The non crafters will have an issue and get bored waiting to find people with orbs. Not sure if you will be able to afford the prices in the AH. Unless you can buy them in the cash shop. Long time to find people to do dungeons. LFG chat can be slow and discourage some people.
Quests are the same there are 4 types over and over variation is missing. Killi an animal type, bring chests, bring resources. It needs something more. Additionally it would be nice to have some kill quests in the pvp section. The current pvp quests are: stay in an area alive for 1.5 min, cut wood and move an object to location X. If no one else is near to kill you then it becomes an easy pve quest. Also two enemies could do the pvp quest fast if they just don’t attack each other especially if they are interested in leveling. Sometimes I do this.. i am like if he doesn’t attack i carry on to get this done fast and strangely enough 70% of the time i am not attacked.
PVP at the end game feels like it is 90% around guilds defending or attacking other factions for territory. Two potential problems.
- What happens when a guild has 100 members and they all queue up for the fight. No one else outside the guild can do the 50 vs 50 forts unless there is another fort contested and they sign up and IF the guilds involved pick them from the roster. Theoretically as a solo player or small guild player you may never get in a fort.
- What happens if the guilds are happy with the amount of territories they have or lack of leadership bring a dry spell of expansive tactics? no 50 vs 50?
End Game thoughts? I am not sure if after hitting max level and playing a bit more to get bis if there will be anything left to do. People hit 60 in a week then focus on solo pvp and log in only for the forts since they are on a schedule. Dungeons are few and once you have the items no need to do them again except to farm items to break.. for repairs which i feel will become more of a chore than fun. Unfortunately I can not see an end game plan here, at least not at this stage.
I see a lot of currency blocks here and items that can be easily added to a cash shop. To answer the major question, a lot of you have YES.
Should I pay the 40$ to play this? The answer is yes. A casual player will have a lot of fun in this game and make the 40$ well spent. Consider it a one time buy and play with a lot of potential to become long term fun. Keep in mind that Alpha to Closed beta was a totally totally different game, so the potential to see a lot more different things on launch is also there. If still not certain, wait a bit after launch for me to play, join us on twitch to discuss it further and then decide. There are plenty of servers and room for all to join.