There is no shortage of opinions on the recently launched New World — and no shortage of drama either. On top of all of the hot takes that you’re getting here on Massively OP, we scouted around the MMO blogosphere to gather up impressions from various perspectives.
We’ll kick off with Unidentified Signal Source, who is here for it: “I’ve spent most of the last week playing the game, which is a bit of a compliment. Despite not feeling particularly strong about the concept before hand, it has a subtle way to latching on to various aspects of sandbox gameplay that makes it hard to ignore. It feels a bit like Ultima Online and a bit like Star Wars Galaxies, and I like it.”
Endgame Variable took a more critical eye at the game, saying, “Combat in New World feels super laggy and janky with random hit boxes and inexplicable rules. I like precision and repeatability in combat, there’s none of that here.”
Dragonchasers thinks that the game has a Goldilocks Problem: “Why keep adding new servers if some of the servers you have are empty? Maybe they’re gearing up for server transfers. Or maybe it’s a publicity stunt to show they’re reacting while they figure out a real solution.”
Dragons and Whimsy had a quick take on a first play session: “It’s very peaceful, and I love the combat. I’m currently rocking a Hatchet/Bow build that relies on Dexterity and it feels really nice. Beautiful game, as well, even on low settings.”
Many Welps is taking time to smell the roses: “I keep getting the impression that I’m playing a weird, piecemeal game that doesn’t quite all go together but it kind of works. The gathering and crafting feels like a hold over from a survival crafting game. The supply crates on the map feel straight out of a Battle Royale.”
Blessing of Kings struggled with the queues, but said, “Once you get in game, everything is quite solid […] I’m not really sure if New World does anything amazing, but it does a lot of small things right. As well, it feels like it is missing the ‘go, go, go’ mentality of recently releases like WoW Classic.”
Tales of the Aggronaut levied an accusation against Amazon for the server mess, saying, “The problems that we are dealing with in this New World launch are absolutely problems of Amazon’s making, in part due to sheer lack of experience in dealing with the MMORPG player base. So here we are with this botched launch and questionable game design… that we could easily walk away from were it not for the fact that when you ARE able to get into a server, the game is damned addicting.”
Inventory Full shared first impressions as well: “As others have said, there’s an awful lot to do in New World. At low levels, at least, you’ll never be stuck for something to fill your time. Another thing I was thinking about as the kilometers ticked by was how I’d define a ‘sandpark’ mmorpg, which is what New World is, probably.”
SparkoMarcoGaming was there on day one, saying, “Speaking of which I got my first title as I found an easy one which only needed me to fail 10 times trying to catch a fish and I was rewarded with the title ‘Feeling Crappie,’ which kind of sums up how I feel about the servers but not the game.”
And MMOQuests gets the final word here: “Everyone keeps telling me that the game is beautiful – but honestly, coming from Black Desert Online, the graphics are not really something that pull to me. There’s a lot of the main faction colours (purple, green, yellow), the name tags are distracting, and because it’s an MMO of course there are some… unique people out there. I’ve seen more offensive names than I care to admit.”
Every day there are tons of terrific, insightful, and unusual articles posted across the MMO gaming blogosphere — and every day, Justin reads as many as he can. Global Chat is a sampling of noteworthy essays, rants, and guides from the past few weeks of MMO discourse.
