[PC] New World

[baelthazar]

Okay, I just picked this up as I'm a sucker for all things of that period. What world should I be playing on if I plan to eventually join and then betray everyone here?

Also, I wasn't able to find a girth or length slider. Are your genitals not customizable in this game?

I think it is called USE Falias. And we are in the Marauders, which are clearly the least capable faction (if you look at the map).

[Sudy]

Lmao yes, it's Falias. To join The Wanderers, message myself (El Suderino), Charlatan, Rittchard, Bloodright, zenblack, etc. for an invitation once you've selected the Marauders faction.

Here's a Discord link to make things much easier if you're so inclined: https://discord.gg/rYgGejPe.

[hepcat]

Whoops, guess a simple search would have answered my question. Oddly enough, Harkonis showed up on my first login on one of the servers as a friend...and it was Falias. So I accidentally went with the right one.

Edit: and Solomon Kaige is now level 5. I like the crafting so far. And combat feels less fiddly than most games of this type. And I found pants. I like pants.

[Hyena]

I hit 20 and 21 last night questing around two of the cities. I am really enjoying this one, but for some reason I have this illogical need to carry around weapons of each type, even though I've become pretty much exclusively bow to start the attack and finish them off with sword and shield. It helps encumbrance that I crafted a bag that increases my capacity by 100 lbs, but I soon filled that space up, too...

Funny story: I was running around and a saw a butt-ass naked man (well, in a loin cloth) with a battle axe strapped across his back combat roll across the road right in front of me, and my first thought was, "Well, I guess Hepcat bought the game after all!"

Then I saw his post saying how much he liked pants...

[YellowKing]

I felt the first tiny twinges of boredom last night as I ran out of quests for my level and had to resort to running town quests repeatedly to get XP. However, at least the game provides you options. Anything you do ultimately provides XP, so this may be the point where I switch over to crafting for a bit as a chance of pace.

I'll only have to suffer through another level - the main storyline quest will pick back up when I hit 50 which should open up a lot more options.

[Hyena]

I felt the first tiny twinges of boredom last night as I ran out of quests for my level and had to resort to running town quests repeatedly to get XP. However, at least the game provides you options. Anything you do ultimately provides XP, so this may be the point where I switch over to crafting for a bit as a chance of pace.

I'll only have to suffer through another level - the main storyline quest will pick back up when I hit 50 which should open up a lot more options.

Ok, my question is should I bother upping my level in the Marauders faction? I'm level 21, but it suggests that I wait until I'm 25 minimum. Is that a realistic or unnecessary goal before I go up to Gladiator in the faction?

[coopasonic]

I felt the first tiny twinges of boredom last night as I ran out of quests for my level and had to resort to running town quests repeatedly to get XP. However, at least the game provides you options. Anything you do ultimately provides XP, so this may be the point where I switch over to crafting for a bit as a chance of pace.

I'll only have to suffer through another level - the main storyline quest will pick back up when I hit 50 which should open up a lot more options.

Ok, my question is should I bother upping my level in the Marauders faction? I'm level 21, but it suggests that I wait until I'm 25 minimum. Is that a realistic or unnecessary goal before I go up to Gladiator in the faction?

You literally can't do it until you are 24 I believe.

[hepcat]

Funny story: I was running around and a saw a butt-ass naked man (well, in a loin cloth) with a battle axe strapped across his back combat roll across the road right in front of me, and my first thought was, "Well, I guess Hepcat bought the game after all!"

Then I saw his post saying how much he liked pants...

I still think they're a fad though

[Jag]

I felt the first tiny twinges of boredom last night as I ran out of quests for my level and had to resort to running town quests repeatedly to get XP. However, at least the game provides you options. Anything you do ultimately provides XP, so this may be the point where I switch over to crafting for a bit as a chance of pace.

I'll only have to suffer through another level - the main storyline quest will pick back up when I hit 50 which should open up a lot more options.

Ok, my question is should I bother upping my level in the Marauders faction? I'm level 21, but it suggests that I wait until I'm 25 minimum. Is that a realistic or unnecessary goal before I go up to Gladiator in the faction?

You literally can't do it until you are 24 I believe.

Yeah, it's really weird that they don't explain it well. You have the pre-quest, but you don't get the actual quest until you are the right level. The good thing is at that level most of the Faction advancement quests are either soloable or popular enough that there are enough people around to do it with.

[Sudy]

And once you're eligible, you want to do the faction advancement quests as soon as possible to increase your token cap and become eligible for the next tier in the faction shop. Though I never purchased anything from it except runes of holding for bags/chests as I levelled. (I'm not necessarily suggesting this; I just didn't do a lot of faction quests and didn't find the need for the equipment.)

Unlike YK, I never ran out of things to do on the road to 60. But if you enjoy doing quests/zones linearly, it sounds like you might. I bounced around wherever the winds and MSQ took me and did a whole lot of crafting and town board quests just because it was fairly convenient while I went on foraging trips.

[YellowKing]

Unlike YK, I never ran out of things to do on the road to 60.

Yeah, full disclosure, I've pretty much exclusively run "normal" quests up to this point, except for when I hit faction caps and had the opportunity to bump up to the next faction level. Then I'll run those for a bit to hit the next cap, then resume normal quests. And while I've done quite a bit of gathering, I've done every little crafting outside of refining raw mats.

Even on the normal quests, I've done quests 5-6 levels higher just because as a healer I can get away with it. So that has led to me kind of outpacing the game and finding myself with little to do.

[Daehawk]

Tracking New World’s concurrent player peaks on Steamcharts, that reveals that on average, New World has lost 135,000 concurrent players every week since launch, and the downward trend is continuing.

Here’s what the trend has looked like since launch. I’ve picked Sundays, which usually seems to be the weekly high point:

10-3: 913,000 players
10-10: 726,000 players
10-16: 608,000 players
10-23: 508,000 players

[Sudy]

I think that's acceptable for a game with a fairly hyped release, no subscription fee, and the early queue issues. The game has bugs, but they're not often game-breaking. There's a huge hardcore base of players (not that you have to be hardcore to enjoy most aspects of the endgame).

[YellowKing]

I'm currently sitting at 143 hours, so I've certainly gotten my $40 worth even if they shut the servers down tomorrow.

I got mildly frustrated with the late game questing (or lack thereof), so I decided to switch gears and work on crafting for a bit, and it opened up a whole new world of fun for me. I've largely avoided it up until now because I knew it would probably be one of my end game focuses, but considering it (like everything in this game) contributes to your character level, I knew it would not be time wasted.

Had a blast doing a big iron run through the newbie zones - no pressure, just running around harvesting. I can tell that even post-60 this might be my go to relaxation game that was formally occupied by various sim games. I don' t know how they made it fun to run around for miles looking for stuff to harvest, but somehow I find that it is.

[Daehawk]

I cant run this game but am curious to how its doing. Love a good mmo. Hope to try it one day if its still around. Are there plenty of others around in game and do you need to form groups at all?

[Sudy]

I cant run this game but am curious to how its doing. Love a good mmo. Hope to try it one day if its still around. Are there plenty of others around in game and do you need to form groups at all?

So, since the game is still extremely popular there are many servers. I don't know if there are "reliable" population numbers available, but it's probably possible to form basic conclusions by doing official forum/reddit/discord research. Falias where The Wanderers play certainly seems active enough, though it can be rare to bump into others when questing in some areas. (This can also be a good thing.) It looks like they structured the launch servers with the possibility of future merges in mind.

Grouping is mandatory for some main story quests, yes. It's not frequent, but the main progression is gated behind the occasional instanced dungeon that you can't enter with fewer than three party members. As well, there's a lot of PvP, late, and endgame content that either requires grouping or is made much more enjoyable by it. Can you get to max level without grouping (outside of mandatory dungeons)? Yes. But if you're not interested in grouping at all ever, I wouldn't recommend it... you'd be missing out. Having a friendly, laid back guild really helps if you don't like grouping with strangers.

I think that's acceptable for a game with a fairly hyped release, no subscription fee, and the early queue issues. The game has bugs, but they're not often game-breaking.

Of course, I say that and then they shut down all trading (in-person, auction house, guild treasury, etc.) because of a serious duping issue lol. I don't think this will disrupt the game long term (it's unclear), but it's deflating for those of us who play by the rules. The economy was already borked beforehand.

[Max Peck]

https://newworldstatus.com/ provides a lot of stats on things like server populations and queue wait times.

[Sudy]

Just a reminder that The Wanderers continue to welcome new members on US-East Falias.

Please join the Discord (https://discord.gg/sqyvbnBB) if you're interested in doing events, trading, and general chatter and tip sharing etc. Voice chat isn't required, though is encouraged for harder group content.

Today, we're running some elite zones now at 10:00 ET. At 2:00 PM we're running The Depths dungeon. Later today we're planning to group for the Motherwell main story quest. At 7:00pm on Saturdays we usually run elite zones with a large group.

[Hyena]

I can vouch that the game is very single-player friendly. I am a member of the Wanderers (thanks, Sudy!), but I have yet to group with any of them. I'm also level 24 and have yet to encounter a mandatory team-up for a main mission. I'm really just enjoying running around, crafting, and getting various weapon skills leveled up (of which there is no real limit). I'm sure I'm getting close to asking for help on a team-up mission, but for now I'm glad I purchased this game.

[coopasonic]

I can vouch that the game is very single-player friendly. I am a member of the Wanderers (thanks, Sudy!), but I have yet to group with any of them. I'm also level 24 and have yet to encounter a mandatory team-up for a main mission. I'm really just enjoying running around, crafting, and getting various weapon skills leveled up (of which there is no real limit). I'm sure I'm getting close to asking for help on a team-up mission, but for now I'm glad I purchased this game.

At 24 you are right at the first "mandatory" team mission. You don't actually have to do it, like, ever, though. My level 35 character never did.

[rittchard]

I can vouch that the game is very single-player friendly. I am a member of the Wanderers (thanks, Sudy!), but I have yet to group with any of them. I'm also level 24 and have yet to encounter a mandatory team-up for a main mission. I'm really just enjoying running around, crafting, and getting various weapon skills leveled up (of which there is no real limit). I'm sure I'm getting close to asking for help on a team-up mission, but for now I'm glad I purchased this game.

At 24 you are right at the first "mandatory" team mission. You don't actually have to do it, like, ever, though. My level 35 character never did.

I believe it's a requirement if you want to advance the Main Story Quest (MSQ). But depending on what you want to do, it really doesn't seem to matter that much if you advance the quest or not. It gets you access to higher level Azoth staff, which are used in later expeditions and also to close corruption portals, but those are all also optional in some sense. If you just want to do crafting or explore or even PvP, it's not a requirement. That said, the dungeons are cool and have good loot and great xp rewards. If you decide you do want to do it, there are likely guild members who can run you through it in around 20 minutes, maybe less.

[Hyena]

I can vouch that the game is very single-player friendly. I am a member of the Wanderers (thanks, Sudy!), but I have yet to group with any of them. I'm also level 24 and have yet to encounter a mandatory team-up for a main mission. I'm really just enjoying running around, crafting, and getting various weapon skills leveled up (of which there is no real limit). I'm sure I'm getting close to asking for help on a team-up mission, but for now I'm glad I purchased this game.

At 24 you are right at the first "mandatory" team mission. You don't actually have to do it, like, ever, though. My level 35 character never did.

I believe it's a requirement if you want to advance the Main Story Quest (MSQ). But depending on what you want to do, it really doesn't seem to matter that much if you advance the quest or not. It gets you access to higher level Azoth staff, which are used in later expeditions and also to close corruption portals, but those are all also optional in some sense. If you just want to do crafting or explore or even PvP, it's not a requirement. That said, the dungeons are cool and have good loot and great xp rewards. If you decide you do want to do it, there are likely guild members who can run you through it in around 20 minutes, maybe less.

Ooh, ok. I'll hop on tonight and see if anyone is around and willing. I am interested in continuing the main story.

[Sudy]

It's been three months and I can't find much reason to log in at this point. I've had a lot of fun playing with Harkonis and the Gaiscioch guild since I left The Wanderers a month ago, but I've seen enough of the endgame to realize that the game just doesn't respect your time. Not that I've played any MMORPGs consistently beyond the 3-month point, I don't think. So that in itself is an accomplishment. But it's frustrating to reach the point where you realize the joy is gone. Perhaps the game is best enjoyed in bite-sized pieces--the lack of a subscription cost certainly encourages this. But like many obsessive gamers, I can't play that way... I'm either giving a game of this scale all my free time, or none at all. We'll see if I can maybe break that pattern by continuing to log in for scheduled guild events and wars. But it's frustrating when wars have limited rosters, and getting in is about who you know or playing the most desired spec.

The bugs, exploits, and AGS's communication issues are a different matter. Looking back, I can't believe the bullshit we remaining players have continued to put up with. It's on us; we felt the game is worth it. But the problems that either haven't been fixed (going back to launch or even beta) or that continue to pop up are amateurish, embarrassing, and can make the game extremely frustrating to play. Someone up top needs to slow their release schedule and make better use of internal testing. It will save more players than it will lose, but perhaps we're beyond that point. Anyone still around is willing to tolerate it.

But I've still enjoyed my time with the game immensely. I haven't played anything that sucked me in like this for years. I pretty much stopped using any leisure time for anything else (television, music, posting, etc). It also got me to be very active with a guild on Discord for the first time, even in voice. I hope it will lead to additional community gaming experiences, though perhaps ones that are a little more balanced with the rest of my life. That's the hard part, especially with MMOGs.

[YellowKing]

I pretty much figured I'd bail after I hit 60, because I never had any real interest in the endgame PvP stuff. However, I greatly enjoyed the journey to 60 and certainly plan to jump back in with any future expansions.

[Skinypupy]

So, I've been seeing a number of articles about how much New World has improved over the past year. I played it for about 10 hours at launch, but bounced off it pretty hard (as did many others). Figured I'd give it another look and see how things had progressed as a couple of the videos make it look pretty interesting.

Here's my experience:
1. Game CTD's after loading for 30 seconds. Restart.
2. Get to the character select screen. My character shows up, but all of the text on the page is borked. It just says "My String" on every header instead of the text that I assume is supposed to be there. Restart the game.
3. After being on the character select screen for about 3 minutes, I get the overheat notice from my video card. I also notice all the textures on my character model are super lo-res. Game CTD's again.
4. Reboot my PC, launch New World again, and now get a "Login Service is not available" message on the character select screen. My character is no longer listed, and it won't populate any worlds for me to create a new one.
5. Figured I must have a corrupted install, so I uninstall and reinstall the game. It does launch to the character select screen, but this time I get a "Login malfunction, please try again later" message. Can't see any worlds, can't see my old character, can't create a new one. Also, the fan on my GPU starts sounding like an airplane, and the temp warning pops again within a couple minutes.

Whelp...I guess I'll just go back to ignoring this game.

[naednek]

So, I've been seeing a number of articles about how much New World has improved over the past year. I played it for about 10 hours at launch, but bounced off it pretty hard (as did many others). Figured I'd give it another look and see how things had progressed as a couple of the videos make it look pretty interesting.

Here's my experience:
1. Game CTD's after loading for 30 seconds. Restart.
2. Get to the character select screen. My character shows up, but all of the text on the page is borked. It just says "My String" on every header instead of the text that I assume is supposed to be there. Restart the game.
3. After being on the character select screen for about 3 minutes, I get the overheat notice from my video card. I also notice all the textures on my character model are super lo-res. Game CTD's again.
4. Reboot my PC, launch New World again, and now get a "Login Service is not available" message on the character select screen. My character is no longer listed, and it won't populate any worlds for me to create a new one.
5. Figured I must have a corrupted install, so I uninstall and reinstall the game. It does launch to the character select screen, but this time I get a "Login malfunction, please try again later" message. Can't see any worlds, can't see my old character, can't create a new one. Also, the fan on my GPU starts sounding like an airplane, and the temp warning pops again within a couple minutes.

Whelp...I guess I'll just go back to ignoring this game.

What video card do you have? I upgraded mine mainly because of my issues with NewWorld and framerates. I didn't really have any crashing. Funny though, I've only played it once or twice since I got the new card

[Daehawk]

I recall this game killed some graphics cards because it overheated them...just being in the menu did it. You'd think they would have fixed that issue.

[Skinypupy]

Apparently they were having server issues today, which would explain it. Reinstalled again and was finally able to get in. Interestingly, both of the "Should you play in 2022" videos I watched mentioned a new starter experience, but it all looks exactly the same to me as it did before.

What video card do you have? I upgraded mine mainly because of my issues with NewWorld and framerates. I didn't really have any crashing. Funny though, I've only played it once or twice since I got the new card

GTX 1070 w/8 GB. This PC was mid-range when I bought it in March 2018, so it's probably getting pretty long in the tooth at this point (I don't keep up with the tech end of things anymore, so I honestly have no idea how outdated it really is).

[YellowKing]

I'm willing to give this another shot. I put in almost 200 hours at launch and really enjoyed my time with it. The only real reason I quit was boredom with the end game content. I watched a few of the "what's new" videos and it looks pretty appealing.

[Sudy]

The beta-era, card-melting frame rate bug Daehawk mentioned was resolved before the game released as far as I know. (One year ago? How?!)

I played this HARD from launch till the end of December. 950+ fuckin' hours. I gound, and ground, and ground professions... waking up to mine ore in the middle of the night for the slim chance of dropping the ore used in some of the best endgame armour. It's the deepest I've ever gotten into MMORPG endgame activities, as well as huge guild and events. That was the best part of the experience for me... the social element of playing with The Wanderers and later Gaiscioch. Once a week Harkonis held a movie and fishing night where guild members streamed a show together as they fished in game. But eventually all that was left was the grind, guild/server drama/politics, and the bugs and bad design decisions. There were a ton of extremely annoying but non-game-breaking bugs that they never fixed, apparently going back to beta. Some elements of the UI were atrocious... form was really prioritized over function. The effects of certain items and systems were undocumented, poorly documented, or just didn't work.

While the amazing-sounding territory wars were fun but underwhelming, it was a fresh remix of the genre, and the setting was pretty fresh despite disappointing writing and limited enemy design. All this considering they converted it from a survival-oriented game to a somewhat traditional MMORPG late in development. But this is also the source of many of its problems. And at the end of it, there was little but a gear score grind and a couple of almost too-hard gated dungeons.

I popped on for the first time since New Year's a couple months ago. It was nice being able to check the game out again without having to subscribe. But barely anything had changed. I think they'd added one new weapon/skill tree and one new dungeon. The population had continued to dwindle and very few of my favourite guildies were still playing.

Maybe they've added a considerable amount of content since then? I doubt it, but honestly I don't care enough to google it. I do still believe this will be a great MMORPG once they work the kinks out and add new content over the next couple of years. But only if Amazon gets their heads out of their asses.

[Skinypupy]

I don’t worry about that stuff too much because I know that I’ll never get that deep into it. Heck, any game that gets over 100 hours is considered to be wildly successful in my world.

I mostly tried it again because the PvE experience is (supposedly) greatly improved. That’s the only reason I play MMos. We’ll see…

[YellowKing]

I'm now torn between resuming with my old character (who's maxed level, but could work on crafting, tradeskills, etc.) Or starting from scratch to experience the new quest hubs, etc.

I'm leaning towards the former, only because I don't really want to toss aside 200 hours of progress. It's just a bit of a learning curve starting with an established character I forgot how to play.

[Edit} And I see server queues are still a thing. Fun.

[Edit] And...I just crashed to desktop. I'm going to bed.

[Sudy]

I don’t worry about that stuff too much because I know that I’ll never get that deep into it. Heck, any game that gets over 100 hours is considered to be wildly successful in my world.

I mostly tried it again because the PvE experience is (supposedly) greatly improved. That’s the only reason I play MMos. We’ll see…

For sure, I hope you get into it! It has to be good for at least that long. My biggest problem with PvE was how hard it could be to solo some areas, especially as you get higher in level. Mostly it's just that the respawn timers were way out of whack... I hope they fixed that. I remember one small shrine-type structure that contained three hard mobs. The first one usually respawned before I'd finished off the third one.

[Skinypupy]

[Edit} And I see server queues are still a thing. Fun.

Supposedly there's some sort of 1-year anniversary thing going on that is driving up logins.

After their queue disaster at launch, you'd think they'd be better prepared for such influxes.

[Skinypupy]

Played for a couple hours tonight and it feels...the same as before. I'm not sure what they changed, as literally everything - quests, crafting, mechanics, locales - was exactly the same as I remember it from when I played a year ago.

Weird to see multiple articles and videos about how it's significantly better, when I can't tell any difference whatsoever.

[Sudy]

Maybe the dominating guilds don't use exploits to cheat themselves into high-end gear anymore, and the auction house isn't taken down for one or more days at a time?

[Skinypupy]

Spent another couple hours this morning, and came to the same conclusion as before. This is definitely not my type of MMO.

I found the entire package to be either remarkably boring and janky (or both). I tried focusing on being an archer, and thought the ranged combat is some of the worst I've ever seen. About half of my shots appeared to go right through mobs without doing any damage, and the ones that did land only did about half the damage as a melee weapon, despite having the exact same attack power stat. It was a miserable experience trying to slowly plunk away at mobs for twice the amount of time it took to kill them with a sword. It was also hilarious to watch these zombies slowly shamble across the ground, then suddenly spring into action with lightning speed, zigging and zagging their way to close in the moment I shot them.

Everything was simply...boring. The quests were boring, the world was boring, the crafting and gathering was boring, what tiny shreds of story were there were boring, it's all just a remarkably dull package altogether. The fact it continued to sound like it was melting my video card no matter what graphics setting I chose didn't help much.

Back to the trash heap it goes...

[naednek]

Apparently they were having server issues today, which would explain it. Reinstalled again and was finally able to get in. Interestingly, both of the "Should you play in 2022" videos I watched mentioned a new starter experience, but it all looks exactly the same to me as it did before.

What video card do you have? I upgraded mine mainly because of my issues with NewWorld and framerates. I didn't really have any crashing. Funny though, I've only played it once or twice since I got the new card

GTX 1070 w/8 GB. This PC was mid-range when I bought it in March 2018, so it's probably getting pretty long in the tooth at this point (I don't keep up with the tech end of things anymore, so I honestly have no idea how outdated it really is).

Ya, I had a 2070 super and it wasn't keeping up with high graphics.

[Sudy]

When I played, bow and musket were some of the hardest to use (and musket was very weak), though they could excel with certain builds and had their uses in PvP wars and dungeons. Archers had the highest DPS in the game but required twitch skills as did musket... musket's appeal was it's massive range and they were frequently employed as specialists and spotters in faction wars. I found them both fun to play around with... they were especially fun to level in low-level zones were you could one or two-shot mobs. But they were definitely unideal for the early levelling process if running solo. In The Wanderers, crawl was a pro archer. I didn't know a lot of other ones.

There's a deep grind beneath the hood of New World, but I found it to be a "fun enough" grind for the first 500+ hours. The combat is rhythmic and always challenging at higher levels. Crafting wasn't particularly nuanced, but it took forever to master. The most fun I had was trying to do quests and then getting distracted exploring and gathering resources. The game is exactly what happens if you develop a PvP survival sandbox and then plop a themepark MMORPG on it late in development. But it's the first game where almost every single tree and rock in the game is harvestable, and even if gathering wasn't particularly interactive, it was incredibly immersive. While again you could get into the rhythm of chopping down trees (and you'd have to chop thousands to level your crafting), it sorely needed a system of timed button presses and crits rather than just hitting the harvest button and waiting. There were rare and legendary crafting drops, but they were extremely, extremely rare. And for a decent chance at them you needed to constantly switch into your appropriate profession gear. (And there was no equipment manager to quickly swap, nor was it even easy to visually tell equipment apart in your inventory since the best affixes could roll on any type of gear.)

It's a mixed up game with a lot of colliding elements, but it should appeal to hoarding/grinding personalities and the environment and music are haunting and gorgeous.

[YellowKing]

Provided I don't keep getting crashes, I think I may continue dabbling in this just as a crafting/tradeskills MMO. I'm not sure I have much interest in the combat side anymore, but as a relaxing timewaster leveling up crafting it might be fun.