It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
New World: Aeternum's open beta ran over the weekend, giving players on console and PC a peek at what is to come October 15th. Now the devs are asking for feedback as they settle in to get ready for launch.
Comments
They'd best not be counting on the same enthusiasm for those on PC that haven't already bought in to it and can't even safely rely on those that have to return.
Agreed and it's because people have been very vocal with feedback only to have it fall on corporate ears that think they know best. The original sandbox PvP vision they had us testing in alpha was still the best version of the game I've played. True open world conquest and territory control, open world player housing, guild and alliance system and npc mobs that were a challenge, let alone the bosses. All of that was scrapped for a PvE/contained PvP focused experience. What they have now is serviceable but I feel like they don't what they want to be at times.
I played a ton on PC but will most likely go xbox in October. I'm fine giving better graphics and fps in exchange for a game not filled with toxic 3000 hr players.
Not a whole lot that is new, besides the starting zone, swimming, no more ammo and some other minor things. Game stability with no desync was a huge bonus. Graphics did not seem as "crisp", but i am a mechanics guy anyways. And again, we could only level to 30. Biggest draw was population. It yet remains to be seen if the journey will continue bug free post lvl 30 and how timely they will implement new content. There are some issues with target-lock that need to be sorted, or it just needs to go away. Hopefully they address this before release as a lot of pvp players consider this a deal breaker.
I think NW would do pretty good on console and that will be where they focus their attention.
The initial story had some revision along with some extra padding. Character generation forces you to select an archetype that starts with two specific weapons and a specific related bonus. As you can easily swap weapons once playing it is best to chose an archetype with the bonus you prefer most of those on offer.
I didn't get much further in as I found those changes annoying rather than enchanting and especially did not enjoy the comparably bloated early experience in comparison to the original, but such is a matter of taste.
There is at least swimming pretty much identical in function and animation to City of Heroes from back in the day, so they reached that milestone.
If you've already purchased New World and the expansion it is certainly worth giving it a go when it gets launched to see if suits your preference.
But the first few days to max level had been fun in NW for quite a while now. Adding swimming, a few visual customization options and a more "diverse" choice of NPCs won't improve the product by a lot, adding thousands of fresh console players might (if they really think this game including the expansion is work 70 bucks).
Sooner or later, though, returners and newcomers alike will hit the void of content that is endgame. The snoozefest that is the single OPR map. And the 1 hour queues of the completely abandoned 3vs3 mode.
I still wish this game would take off. Combat is great for MMO standards, the lore is actually pretty cool (with shades of The Secret World), the journey to level 65 is fun, the world map without loading screens and different biomes has so much potential, graphics are... acceptable.
But the overall amount of content and things to do are rather lacking and you can tell it was never meant to be the PvE theme park MMO they shoehorned it into last minute. Otherwise it would at least have all kinds of achievements and minor things to go for (looking at how GW2 does it). Or some persistent RvR like DAoC or ESO.
Alas, it's neither of these things. A bland, directionless and boring game once you breezed through the zones and to max level within a few days. A stale soup with forgettable season-pass-based "content" à là Destiny 2 or Diablo IV. And nothing of what they have said or done makes me believe that will change. Bummer.
Just say that isn't true.
That makes my head hurt.
I believe the hope is that combining the PC and console market will provide sufficient population. To that end they adjusted the game to what they thought would be better received on console while not greatly alienating their remaining PC fans. It probably has a better chance of success than the current game so there is at least that.
Sadly I don't recall. Hopefully if so there is an option to disable it for those that would rather manually aim.