Some of these bugs are so common and easy to spot that it’s 100% obvious they did next to zero QA on many parts of the game. Not excusable, especially with the Amazon name on it. I’m a coder and if I gave my supervisor some untested bullshit they’d look at me with a “???”.
I am too, but if they don’t fix all this simple, minor stuff before then then I won’t be spending anymore dollahs. To me, it just shows they’re not willing to make sure the game works properly before putting it out there. It’s like if I went to buy a coffee machine and the thing doesn’t even spit hot water out half the time. I’m also already cautious about trusting their communications since they put out that false info about the transfers. I want this game to be good and longlasting, but so far I’m not convinced it will be that. For now, I’ll be making my way to 60 and having a good time.
I love how the various animals interact with the world around them - like the goats that will chase you to headbutt you and then run off - cheeky little buggers. The bison taking sand baths and the boar snuggled up under a bush sleeping.
I love exploring and gathering - I love finding little hidden gems like the ghost ship at Saircor Bridge in First Light - I’ve spotted it twice now while fishing during nighttime.
The sound is phenomenal. The ambiance, creatures, gathering, and interactive sounds, plus the town music. Honestly I think it deserves an award or two.
Combat is largely fun in a generic sense such as weapon skills & leveling, including fairly unique weapon play styles.
Leveling gathering professions feels like it takes an appropriate amount of time (i.e., it takes some time investment and dedication to level logging, harvesting, etc).
The Depths expedition felt really well designed (though some minor bugs were encountered). The boss health pools felt non-trivial (Azumela and Thorpe specifically), though the others were a bit inconsequential). The mechanics also felt good with decent visual and audio indicators for boss abilities.
I enjoy the abundance of various gathering nodes. It gives (me) a sense of accomplishment during a shorter play session that the easier to obtain T1/T2 resources still hold some sort of value either to me or other players.
Grateful that thus far the in-game store is cosmetic items only. Hopefully it stays like this versus implementing more profitable P2W items.
General leveling progression feels good (to me). I haven’t had any dry (or “grind” spells), but have also done more zones than “just the recommended”. This does lead to being “over-leveled” for some content, particularly when combining with voracious gathering habits . I also like squashing low-level NPCs with a hammer, so… works out for me.
One additional note/edit: I am familiar to the game development/QA fields and know that they are probably being overworked right now trying to fix a plethora of issues. A very good thing to keep in mind is that no matter how large those two teams are (dev, QA) that they are positively dwarfed by the amount of players that are playing the game and reporting problems. The majority of issues do not get discovered until a quarter or half a million people are playing it essentially 24/7. Give them a little appreciation and room to breath.
I was expecting to sort of enjoy the game while I secretly hoped WoW would fix PVP gear and I could go back to that game.
Then I tried the game, and since I first got dumped on the beach I have been in love with it. The freedom to roam this gorgeous world is just what I wanted.
The world PVP really makes it for me. I love the combat, weapon talent trees, pairing different weapons and how important the terrain is in battle.
After 120 hours, I am only level 33, and just love running to meet up with friends as they level. Traversing the world feels amazing because of PvP too, and I definitely do not want mounts added.
Zones and sound are gorgeous, game is really fun, and I brought along 4 others who all love it too.
Have to agree - wow and other mindless grind games are trash compared to new world. The skill inherent in the fighting mechanics, the fantastic visuals, world pvp (never turn it off), no mounts (thank you), and the absolutely killer sound design keep me coming back for more.
Looking forward to the game just getting better and better (from another developer!)
So you state they are easy to spot. Yes, there are always bugs that are on the surface easy to spot. Like a wolf trapped inside of a rock, alright cool, what caused that to occur to only that one wolf? Well that could be anywhere in the code, is it the wolfs code? The rocks? The code related to that location of the map? Is the server traffic causing a reoccurring bit flip? Yeah, bugs are easy to spot on a visual level, this does not mean that they are easy to spot in the code. You say you are a “coder” which in my line of work has always been someone that knows very little about the intricacies of writing sophisticated software and rather a script kiddie or can write code that works, but is not efficient. I am sure lots of the code was tested. Are developers able to account for every possible test case on the planet? No, there are probably thousands of tests that were ran and more are being added. This doesn’t mean everything is accounted for all the time.
And I agree the lack of communication is alarming, I would prefer to have more communication about things that are going on. This is probably not on the developers though, but rather management which could probably care less about us as players. And furthermore, I agree they do need to fix the minor things and the framework of the game, which is what they are trying to do, but everyone is yelling at them that it is only broken, the game is trash, etc etc. As a developer that probably poured a little of their soul in their production pieces that would be very disheartening and distracting. It would be similar to me sitting here working on a production piece while the client is constantly in my ear and saying that everything I am doing is wrong, and yet they don’t know the core principles of what I am doing, they just know the product that they want and not the principle foundations that allow their product to exist.
I love the ability to climb on things. It is a great feature that makes me feel like I can really explore new locations. Granted I am glad we can’t climb a lot in town because then everyone would be on the rooftops all the time. Unless I am in a spat of quest grind, I also avoid fast travel.
I love the experience I am having with my friends. But, I also love randomly getting into a group and running some quests together. Best times are when the Faction colors above our heads are non-existent. Unless of course it is PvP time and uh we need some territory or they do.
I am also a software developer, and yes the critical dev in me see’s the bugs and the small QoL issues that I think to myself “wouldn’t take long to implement”, but the game has kept me playing and the overall issues
that I feel have affected me have been nothing more than a trivial nuisance.
OP is right on many levels, finding and implementing fixes in a vast code base is not an easy feat, not to mention the software development process from start to finish, including but not limited to; design, analysis, dev and test… takes a huge amount of effort and time.
I imagine they want the best for us all and are working tirelessly to iron out issues and deliver the highest quality product they can.
So thank you not only to the dev’s, but also the tester’s, designer’s and any other member of the team.
Some of my favourite parts of the game:
There’s always something to do, from crafting, to gathering, to grinding (portals, elite areas and dungeons), and that’s when I get time between wars. These systems are fun and there is a lot of variety from one day to the next.
The sounds and graphics are amazing, they really immerse you and keep the game alive while travelling through or casually farming zones.
The community (atleast in my server) around factions, PvP and PvE. The platform they have created to facilitate and grow bonds in game, it has allowed my company to build friendships with players from different countries and backgrounds, there is no better feeling when we all come together to fight in war or in open world dungeons, all in aid of strengthening our faction as a whole.
Wow it’s like it’s their job or something to QA each section of their game and fix any bugs that happen during development. Crazy. I don’t think punishing, simple bugs like the one that incorrectly calculated the gold cost to move materials should’ve EVER made it to production. But hey, I’m sure it’s super duper hard to dig into where exactly that module is located and then run some tests to make sure you’re getting the correct results.
And I’ve got a name for people in my line of work like you that have a superiority complex going on - asshole.
After almost 2000 hours in New World (preview, alpha, both betas and launch), I still love to log in and rediscover the world. Thanks for this thread, OP.
Things I love:
The sound is amazing, perhaps especially the Foley details like what my char sounds like with or without a helmet on.
The world with its different biomes. From the ‘herb heaven’ that is First Light to the warm welcome and comfort of eternal autumn in Everfall, from the jaw-dropping beauty of Edengrove and the crisp brilliance of Great Cleave’s snow glinting in sunlight, this is a world that feels vast and immersive.
Open exploration. As an explorer at heart, it is very fulfilling to just pick a direction and run to see what I’ll discover.
Laughing at myself Being able to gather just about everything in the world. Gorging on ‘ooh shiny’ is very satisfying, and AGS has hit the nail on the head with the addictive aspect of it.
And there’s a term for people who know just enough to think they’re an expert - the Dunning-Kruger effect. Look it up.
I used to be a “coder” at the start of my career. Since then I’ve been a design lead, platform manager, testing quality manager and an enterprise architect - all of that on complex online systems (financial, not games, so ones where you REALLY don’t want to screw up). That’s not to brag, it’s to say that your perspective changes as your experience grows. From my perspective, New World isn’t perfect but they’ve done a good job. I’m thoroughly entertained, there are defects but none are a show stopper, and they’re pushing out bug fixes at a rapid pace.
Never claimed to be an expert my guy. It doesn’t take a 30 year IT veteran to know that there’s many, many obvious + punishing issues that should’ve never been able to make it to launch. (Mass report insta-bans anyone?) People can defend whatever they want and say “they’re working on it! They’re getting the problems fixed at a great rate! I’m a dev and I can tell you these issues are HARD to fix!”, but it doesn’t matter to players like me. Alot of people are tired of half-assed games with shitty problems that should’ve been fixed before launch. Imagine if they launched this game at $60 instead of $40. I’d be making twice as much popcorn to read these forums on the daily.
New World is currently a fun, hot mess at best. Another month, two months, three months? Ehhhh…
. I also like squashing low-level NPCs with a hammer, so… works out for me.
