MMOs are a dime a dozen, and for many years, I’ve been a fan of the genre. If you want, you can run around with a group of like-minded people, but without any obligation or stress. Starting with Lineage II, moving through various Asian MMOs to Eve Online, and in a broader sense Destiny 2, I’ve played a lot of them.

That said, the two most famous representatives of the genre have passed me by: World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. With WoW, I was initially put off by the community I encountered back in the Burning Crusade days. After that, I played Black Desert Online for a while and could no longer get used to tab-targeting, or indirect controls. That’s also why I skipped Final Fantasy XIV. Ever since Black Desert, I’ve been a fan of action combat.

One of the biggest criticisms, however, was probably that the game wasn’t accessible. There were no mounts, and you had to do a lot of running. There were fast travel points, but they were far apart and fast travel was quite expensive. To make matters worse, there was no global storage system, and fast traveling between towns became more expensive the more weight you had in your personal inventory. In turn, storage capacity in each town was limited, forcing crafters to store their items across multiple towns. Not to mention the faction system, which, depending on your own faction, made crafting more attractive in towns controlled by your faction. The stupid part, of course, was that the market wasn’t global either, and your server’s main trading hub wasn’t necessarily the town where you had faction bonuses.

So you were forced to do a lot of logistics, especially as a crafter. On the other hand, the faction system was completely useless outside of that. Only a few players could participate in the faction wars, and outside of those, PvP was, and still is, completely optional. Mandatory open-world PvP between factions would have strengthened the individual town marketplaces and made transport more exciting and rewarding. At least with the option of losing your inventory. Without the possibility of loss, you just run back and you’re fine. Risk vs. reward should have been the motto here.

But unfortunately, AGS listened to the players too much. Both in the beta tests and after release. Especially after release, the game was overrun by over a million players. Many of these players came from themepark MMOs with no real PvP, but with a focus on story. That’s exactly what New World didn’t offer, and its systems weren’t designed for it. The systems were designed for a PvP system, aside from the engine’s problems. But instead of acknowledging and expanding the PvP focus, AGS went the exact opposite way: they left PvP in its pathetic state and instead simplified the game even further. More fast travel points, fast travel being practically free, a global market, and global access to all storage. This makes it almost irrelevant which town you visit or occupy as a faction.

Still, the gameplay is fun. The combat is nice and dynamic, without being as over-the-top as in Black Desert Online. The world looks impressive, even if you can feel the time pressure the studio was under. Every few hundred meters, you find the same chests, carts, and rocks. At least the cities and biomes are unique. A bit more exploration would have been great, though. Although you hardly have to run anymore, thanks to the inflationary placement of fast travel points and mounts.

The game could offer a lot in terms of story. By now, it’s at least partially voice-acted, but the majority is lazily told through lore notes you can collect in the world. I actually find the premise about the cause of immortality and the corruption of the soul really exciting. I haven’t finished the entire story myself yet, but so far, it has entertained me. But what comes after? A few dungeons that can be made harder with modifiers for better loot. Faction war? It’s been reworked, I still need to check it out. Crafting and gathering probably aren’t my thing in New World either. I’m curious to see what carrot the game will dangle in front of me at the end.

But I think I’ll be writing a few more posts about New World. My plan is to write more articles about current topics in my favorite games and programs. You can look forward to it 😄