Objective review of New World after extensive gametime

[Cerenia]

Ladies and gentlemen, the moment we have all been waiting for is here.

After clocking in 35 hours I feel the time for my review is long overdue.

Now that the dust has settled and the first impression is over I am granted the opportunity to have a more objective and in-depth perspective when it comes to New World and its flaws and strengths.

Most of the early reviews from users have been based solely on emotional sentiments surrounding the queue times and not from actual game quality. I am going to leave the queue times out of the equation and not list is as one of the cons in my review, simply because yanky launches comes with the territory of large online games.

If anything - the small team of developers at Amazon Games (a company of 227 employees according to an online website, the numbers may be outdated) have worked like heroes to ensure that all paying customer will be able to play by rolling out a staggering server fleet of upwards of 100+ in just mere days, which is an engineering marvel of feat that is rivalled by almost none. I therefor salute the team of devs and engineers that have worked around the clock like the champions they are. My hat goes off in the most utmost respect!

So here is the review I left for New world on the steam page ;

Pros :

- An esthetically pleasing art direction with heavy influence from the spanish conquistadors, which is refreshing as this art direction is virtually untapped and underutilized in popculture. Too many fantasy games copy and repaint the same exact art styles with only minor variations in armor and weapon sets, implementing the same tropes over and over - with New World we getting a totally new look and feel to our characters.

- The ingame Game Masters is doing a fantastic job at ensuring that all players from all walks of life will have a safe gaming environment free from toxicity, harrasment, bigotry, sexism and racism. The GM's in New World will unlike GM's from other MMO's strike fast whenever a player is insulting others or being a nuance that disrupt the gaming experience for others. Griefers and bullies is being swiftly dealt with, which makes the game a better place for everyone in the community.

- The graphics and optimization is absolutely rocking it. I bought a cheap computer to play New World (hp pavilion with Ryzen7 5700G, GTX 3060 TI and AOC 240hz gsync monitor) and I get a steady 120-140 FPS at high settings but I capped it at 60. Such high numbers in a MMO with hundreds of players in every region is from an engineering perspective a marvel of feat due to the fact that the ingame graphics rivals that of the best graphics in the most demanding soloplayer games. The graphics is absolutelly stunning and marvelous, a sight to behold!

- The combat is fluid, engaging and the animations is on point. When you take that huge hammer and connect it to the skull of a foe or a beast the sensation of the impact can almost be physically felt in your body. The attacks and combat spells are in other words highly impactful, which makes every fight feel great, fun and exciting. In many games I try to avoid killing more monsters then I absolutely have to as the combat is tedious, but in New World I can just keep slapping monsters in the head even tho I have already killed enough to meet the requirment of the quest, it's addicting!

- Which leaves me to my next part, the quests. The quest givers are straight forward just the way I like it. No time consuming walls of texts, no long drawn out unskippable cutscenes. They just tell you what you have to do, and you go out there in the wilderness and do what you need to do. Simple and effective.

- As for the lore part, in many MMO games it is forced down your throat but in New World you can explore the lore at your own leisure by reading all the notes scattered around the vastness of the Aeternum Island. It is therefor up to the players to choose for themself if they desire to dwell into the lore and actively seek it out for knowledge, or if they want the lore to be a bit more in the background of other experiences in the game. Choices is always welcome because choices means freedom and I love freedom!

- The crafting system is one of the most advanced that you will find in any game, it's complex, deep, meaningful and most importantly very fun! It's a powerful system that gives the player hours of hours of fun labour and content to sink their teeth into. With the additional bonus of exciting gathering mechanics. In the Civilization franchise they say "Just one more turn, please!" , in the New World I oftentimes find myself thinking "Just one more node, please!" which speaks volumes of all the positive sentiments I have on that matter.

- The PvP revoles around large scale battles where you are not solely fighting for yourself, but something bigger then yourself. You are helping your company gain control over land and settlements, which makes PvP more then just a frag-fest since PvP now actually have real meaning with real consequences and strategic depth to it. I've watched videos of dedicated companies wage war and the troops are disciplined and the shotcallers sound like real Generals as they bark out commands. Fun fun fun! In this game you are not Rambo or the destroyer of worlds, but a soldier apart of a large team with shared joint goals and interests. Where said interests and goals can only be achieved by a band of people fighting side by side in their darkest hour.

- The game dont overload you with hundreds upon hundreds of spells, abilities, potions that you have to keybind and consistently use in order to reach your characters full potential. In New World there's only a limited amount of spells you have to use, which means it more accessible for players.

So lets jump to the cons! I actually just found one, but I did not include it in the review because it has to do more about weapon balance then game quality. Balance in a new game is hard to get perfect, but I would say that it is 99% close to perfection as is. The only thing I would like to see is :

- Aim assist for the life staff in PvE or make the hitbox of the projectiles larger. The life staff is underwhelming to level up with, and as a result we now see a large lack of dedicated healers which ultimately hurts everyone since this is a group based gamed based around the dyamics of tank, healer , dps. By making the life staff a bit less tedious to handle more people may want to invest time into levelling it up.

-------------

But yea, since that is a balance issue and not a game issue I left the con out of the steam review.

All in all, from the vantage point of pure objectivity and no emotional sentiments I give the game a 10/10 or 10 stars if you will. I suspect it may win the 2021 Game Of The Year Award easily, because that is just how good it is. In terms of quality it's like Witcher 3 on steroids in a MMO form with hundreds of thousands of players to befriend and have fun together with.

Well done Amazon Games, this review was well earned and I am 100% sure to see many many more great things from you in the future, a bright future!

I also apologize for my grammar, I not a native English speaker or from a country whom speaks English at all. But I tried my best and I hope that is enough.

My review can be found here : https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004630496/recommended/1063730?snr=1_5_9__402

10 out of a whoopin 10!

[Cerenia]

Nguyên văn bởi TRJoker:

Nguyên văn bởi Cappin Captain 英语:

Can't tell if this is bait or not, but every one of those is a subjective opinion, only a couple of your points were objective lol.

Want a tip for answering if this is bait or not?
I am 60 ... i did play on C64 and x286 when I was 17 ... she is 38 ....

The 0286 was a 16 bit microchip that was released in 1982, one year before I was born.

It was at a time where a computer cost a fortune and then some. Thankfully my dad had a friend who was the director of Tandberg computer factory in Norway, so when I was 6 years of age he gave my dad an old and outdated machine they hadnt managed to sell (the 286), which my dad gave to me.

The computer came with Police Quest from Sierra, a brutally difficult game.

The computer was later upgraded to a Compaq presario 0486. Then I got a sega megadrive and later a gameboy.

Alot of people have nostalgic memories of the games of the 90s - like Unreal, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, wolfenstein, red alert, command and conqueror, quake, final fantasy VII, diablo 1-2, lost vikings, super mario 64, sonic the hedgehog, monkey island etc. I played it all.

My first MMO was Lineage 1 , a korean based MMO that was released in the west 1998, I played it until the servers shut down in 2011. NCSoft had done a fatal mistake, and that was to not ban bots. The game ran on a subscription model so they saw the bots as great income because they would multiply, 1 turned into 10, 10 into 100, 100 into 1000.

In the process the real and legit players would quit as all the farming areas were overtaken by bots. Then when the real players quit there was no more customers for the bots to sell their goods so they quit too and the servers ended up empty.

This process happened in just the span of 4 years. Prior to the bot invasion the servers had a healthy player base of legit paying customers. So they shot themself in the foot by trying to make more cash on bots.

What I gathered out of this is that it is imperative to aggressively ban bots and griefers from the get go as to nip it in the bud before the problem grows too big.

Anyhow, the games today are much better then the blasts from the past. If I had the option to timetravel back to the 90s and play Duke Nukem 3D or Command and Conqueror or remain in current time and play New World I'd easily stay.

I still have my playstation 1 and 2, gameboy, sega megadrive in my closet. Not sure if they still work.

[Athmet]

Nguyên văn bởi retsam1:

Nguyên văn bởi Cerenia:

Pros :

- An esthetically pleasing art direction with heavy influence from the spanish conquistadors, which is refreshing as this art direction is virtually untapped and underutilized in popculture. Too many fantasy games copy and repaint the same exact art styles with only minor variations in armor and weapon sets, implementing the same tropes over and over - with New World we getting a totally new look and feel to our characters.

- The ingame Game Masters is doing a fantastic job at ensuring that all players from all walks of life will have a safe gaming environment free from toxicity, harrasment, bigotry, sexism and racism. The GM's in New World will unlike GM's from other MMO's strike fast whenever a player is insulting others or being a nuance that disrupt the gaming experience for others. Griefers and bullies is being swiftly dealt with, which makes the game a better place for everyone in the community.

- The graphics and optimization is absolutely rocking it. I bought a cheap computer to play New World (hp pavilion with Ryzen7 5700G, GTX 3060 TI and AOC 240hz gsync monitor) and I get a steady 120-140 FPS at high settings but I capped it at 60. Such high numbers in a MMO with hundreds of players in every region is from an engineering perspective a marvel of feat due to the fact that the ingame graphics rivals that of the best graphics in the most demanding soloplayer games. The graphics is absolutelly stunning and marvelous, a sight to behold!

- The combat is fluid, engaging and the animations is on point. When you take that huge hammer and connect it to the skull of a foe or a beast the sensation of the impact can almost be physically felt in your body. The attacks and combat spells are in other words highly impactful, which makes every fight feel great, fun and exciting. In many games I try to avoid killing more monsters then I absolutely have to as the combat is tedious, but in New World I can just keep slapping monsters in the head even tho I have already killed enough to meet the requirment of the quest, it's addicting!

- Which leaves me to my next part, the quests. The quest givers are straight forward just the way I like it. No time consuming walls of texts, no long drawn out unskippable cutscenes. They just tell you what you have to do, and you go out there in the wilderness and do what you need to do. Simple and effective.

- As for the lore part, in many MMO games it is forced down your throat but in New World you can explore the lore at your own leisure by reading all the notes scattered around the vastness of the Aeternum Island. It is therefor up to the players to choose for themself if they desire to dwell into the lore and actively seek it out for knowledge, or if they want the lore to be a bit more in the background of other experiences in the game. Choices is always welcome because choices means freedom and I love freedom!

- The crafting system is one of the most advanced that you will find in any game, it's complex, deep, meaningful and most importantly very fun! It's a powerful system that gives the player hours of hours of fun labour and content to sink their teeth into. With the additional bonus of exciting gathering mechanics. In the Civilization franchise they say "Just one more turn, please!" , in the New World I oftentimes find myself thinking "Just one more node, please!" which speaks volumes of all the positive sentiments I have on that matter.

- The PvP revoles around large scale battles where you are not solely fighting for yourself, but something bigger then yourself. You are helping your company gain control over land and settlements, which makes PvP more then just a frag-fest since PvP now actually have real meaning with real consequences and strategic depth to it. I've watched videos of dedicated companies wage war and the troops are disciplined and the shotcallers sound like real Generals as they bark out commands. Fun fun fun! In this game you are not Rambo or the destroyer of worlds, but a soldier apart of a large team with shared joint goals and interests. Where said interests and goals can only be achieved by a band of people fighting side by side in their darkest hour.

- The game dont overload you with hundreds upon hundreds of spells, abilities, potions that you have to keybind and consistently use in order to reach your characters full potential. In New World there's only a limited amount of spells you have to use, which means it more accessible for players.

So lets jump to the cons! I actually just found one, but I did not include it in the review because it has to do more about weapon balance then game quality. Balance in a new game is hard to get perfect, but I would say that it is 99% close to perfection as is. The only thing I would like to see is :

- Aim assist for the life staff in PvE or make the hitbox of the projectiles larger. The life staff is underwhelming to level up with, and as a result we now see a large lack of dedicated healers which ultimately hurts everyone since this is a group based gamed based around the dyamics of tank, healer , dps. By making the life staff a bit less tedious to handle more people may want to invest time into levelling it up.

-------------

But yea, since that is a balance issue and not a game issue I left the con out of the steam review.

All in all, from the vantage point of pure objectivity and no emotional sentiments I give the game a 10/10 or 10 stars if you will. I suspect it may win the 2021 Game Of The Year Award easily, because that is just how good it is. In terms of quality it's like Witcher 3 on steroids in a MMO form with hundreds of thousands of players to befriend and have fun together with.

Well done Amazon Games, this review was well earned and I am 100% sure to see many many more great things from you in the future, a bright future!

I also apologize for my grammar, I not a native English speaker or from a country whom speaks English at all. But I tried my best and I hope that is enough.

My review can be found here : https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004630496/recommended/1063730?snr=1_5_9__402

10 out of a whoopin 10!

You make a few points that are objective but lost in the larger use of subjectivity.

Can you really be entirely objective though ?

[Alenfal]

Nguyên văn bởi Athmet:

Can you really be entirely objective though ?

When reviewing i.e. giving your thoughts?

No.

[GraveWax]

one of the most biased fanboy "objective" reviews I have ever seen. I assume the OP posted this as humor as no way would someone that is objective write such garbage.

[retsam1]

Nguyên văn bởi Athmet:

Nguyên văn bởi retsam1:

You make a few points that are objective but lost in the larger use of subjectivity.

Can you really be entirely objective though ?

Of course that can be a challenge, but the evidence is rather compelling that there is much more subjectivity present than objectivity within that review.

[TRJoker]

Nguyên văn bởi Cerenia:

Nguyên văn bởi TRJoker:

Want a tip for answering if this is bait or not?
I am 60 ... i did play on C64 and x286 when I was 17 ... she is 38 ....

The 0286 was a 16 bit microchip that was released in 1982, one year before I was born.

It was at a time where a computer cost a fortune and then some. Thankfully my dad had a friend who was the director of Tandberg computer factory in Norway, so when I was 6 years of age he gave my dad an old and outdated machine they hadnt managed to sell (the 286), which my dad gave to me.

The computer came with Police Quest from Sierra, a brutally difficult game.

The computer was later upgraded to a Compaq presario 0486. Then I got a sega megadrive and later a gameboy.

Alot of people have nostalgic memories of the games of the 90s - like Unreal, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, wolfenstein, red alert, command and conqueror, quake, final fantasy VII, diablo 1-2, lost vikings, super mario 64, sonic the hedgehog, monkey island etc. I played it all.

My first MMO was Lineage 1 , a korean based MMO that was released in the west 1998, I played it until the servers shut down in 2011. NCSoft had done a fatal mistake, and that was to not ban bots. The game ran on a subscription model so they saw the bots as great income because they would multiply, 1 turned into 10, 10 into 100, 100 into 1000.

In the process the real and legit players would quit as all the farming areas were overtaken by bots. Then when the real players quit there was no more customers for the bots to sell their goods so they quit too and the servers ended up empty.

This process happened in just the span of 4 years. Prior to the bot invasion the servers had a healthy player base of legit paying customers. So they shot themself in the foot by trying to make more cash on bots.

What I gathered out of this is that it is imperative to aggressively ban bots and griefers from the get go as to nip it in the bud before the problem grows too big.

Anyhow, the games today are much better then the blasts from the past. If I had the option to timetravel back to the 90s and play Duke Nukem 3D or Command and Conqueror or remain in current time and play New World I'd easily stay.

I still have my playstation 1 and 2, gameboy, sega megadrive in my closet. Not sure if they still work.

Hehe, ok, I am nevertheless the biggest troll here, made the troll stop playing SIMS4 and run to Aunt Google for help (edit: with one sentence, i am genius ... hehe) ... smile.
Sorry for that ....

[overencumbered]

Nguyên văn bởi Cerenia:

I am purely an observer that sees things with surgical and clinical precision.

Now you're either trolling or delusional. Maybe a little of both.

[Cerenia]

Nguyên văn bởi TRJoker:

Nguyên văn bởi Cerenia:

The 0286 was a 16 bit microchip that was released in 1982, one year before I was born.

It was at a time where a computer cost a fortune and then some. Thankfully my dad had a friend who was the director of Tandberg computer factory in Norway, so when I was 6 years of age he gave my dad an old and outdated machine they hadnt managed to sell (the 286), which my dad gave to me.

The computer came with Police Quest from Sierra, a brutally difficult game.

The computer was later upgraded to a Compaq presario 0486. Then I got a sega megadrive and later a gameboy.

Alot of people have nostalgic memories of the games of the 90s - like Unreal, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, wolfenstein, red alert, command and conqueror, quake, final fantasy VII, diablo 1-2, lost vikings, super mario 64, sonic the hedgehog, monkey island etc. I played it all.

My first MMO was Lineage 1 , a korean based MMO that was released in the west 1998, I played it until the servers shut down in 2011. NCSoft had done a fatal mistake, and that was to not ban bots. The game ran on a subscription model so they saw the bots as great income because they would multiply, 1 turned into 10, 10 into 100, 100 into 1000.

In the process the real and legit players would quit as all the farming areas were overtaken by bots. Then when the real players quit there was no more customers for the bots to sell their goods so they quit too and the servers ended up empty.

This process happened in just the span of 4 years. Prior to the bot invasion the servers had a healthy player base of legit paying customers. So they shot themself in the foot by trying to make more cash on bots.

What I gathered out of this is that it is imperative to aggressively ban bots and griefers from the get go as to nip it in the bud before the problem grows too big.

Anyhow, the games today are much better then the blasts from the past. If I had the option to timetravel back to the 90s and play Duke Nukem 3D or Command and Conqueror or remain in current time and play New World I'd easily stay.

I still have my playstation 1 and 2, gameboy, sega megadrive in my closet. Not sure if they still work.

Hehe, ok, I am nevertheless the biggest troll here, made the troll stop playing SIMS4 and run to Aunt Google for help (edit: with one sentence, i am genius ... hehe) ... smile.
Sorry for that ....

My big brain has stored enormous amount of data that is has collected over a long life.

[Gazza]

"The combat is fluid, engaging and the animations is on point"

I think we both played different games

[Cerenia]

Nguyên văn bởi Gazza:

"The combat is fluid, engaging and the animations is on point"

I think we both played different games

How is combat not fluid and impactful?

[Fraktal]

Animation locks?

[Veg]

Why do people spend paragraphs communicating a thought they could make in a sentence or two? Too many redditors on the steam forums

[AngryPancake]

Yeah, you lost me at the part where you said you have 35 hours and you think, that is enough.....
Also how fragile does your ego have to be to require an online game to be policed to hell so that you can play in a "safe" enviroment..... What is wrong with the world. Back in original WoW if someone called you an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you called him an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ back and then you both dealt with it and move on. Now you call someone a kid and you have a swat squad on ur ass.....

[Cerenia]

Nguyên văn bởi Veg:

Why do people spend paragraphs communicating a thought they could make in a sentence or two? Too many redditors on the steam forums

I dont use reddit, and yes it could be broken down into a much shorter version :

- Graphics are top notch
- Combat and abilities is impactful and fluid
- Crafting is deep and extensive
- Quest givers are straight to the point
- Lore is limited unless you actively seek it
- The game masters are quick to ban toxic flamers and afk'ing macro users
- The art style that is influenced by the spanish conquistadors is rare and unique in a RPG game. No orcs, elves, gnome , european knight tropes you find in most MMO's.
- Pvp revolve around group battles
- Each character have a limited amount of spells/abilities to u

-------------

But I wanted my review for the steam page to be a bit more in-depth and detailed so a potential customer knows what he or she may expect to get from the game.

[Cerenia]

Nguyên văn bởi AngryPancake:

Yeah, you lost me at the part where you said you have 35 hours and you think, that is enough.....
Also how fragile does your ego have to be to require an online game to be policed to hell so that you can play in a "safe" enviroment..... What is wrong with the world. Back in original WoW if someone called you an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you called him an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ back and then you both dealt with it and move on. Now you call someone a kid and you have a swat squad on ur ass.....

I lack a superego, I take nothing personal. I'm completely neutral to people whom throw insults my way.

But I see the bigger pictures , games that is unmoderated will quickly find themself having a toxic community. There are several games that are highly known for having toxic players, games that were formerly vastly popular.

Keyword is formerly. The toxicity killed of the player base of normal players that just want to play and have fun without having to deal with trolls that went out of their way to harrass others.

So the best course of action is to nip it in the bud and set a precedence from the get go and make it crystal clear that this type of behavior is not fine or accepted.

I am advocating for this and I salute the developers for taking this issue seriously because I do not want to see the game die off because the griefers get a free ride and uses the ingame chat feature as an outlet for their anger, insecurities and problems that they harbor within themself and let out on innocent people.

Those flamers people need to book an appointment with a therapist so they can work on the internal issues that they are dealing with in an unhealthy manner so they can learn healthier way to release stress and frustration. I am very serious about that.