Developer Appreciation from a Software Developer

General Discussion General Discussion
1

There is a lot of hate being thrown towards the developers of New World here on the forums and I wanted to throw some appreciation their way instead and I invite others to do so. Mention anything positive that you like about the game. Maybe they will see this, maybe they won’t, but others on the forums or browsing the forums will and can see that hey, not all of us hate the game because of some bugs and some content that could be added or could not be.

I just want to say this is the first MMO that I have actually stuck with, I have started several before and I got bored really early, didn’t like the community, or various other more specific reasons. AGS Devs thanks for giving me a game that I enjoy playing and want to stick with. Yes, there are bugs, but there are bugs in every piece of software on this planet.

To talk more on bugs in every piece of software on this planet, I am a Software Developer, no I will not list my company, and bugs are a way of life in code. Writing code is the easy part, making sure it all works as you expected it to, now that is the hard part and the part that takes the longest amount of time. Additionally, once you start adding more and more lines of code to the point you have Millions of lines of code, well not one person knows each and every line of code in the piece of Software. That is an unrealistic expectation and I am confident that at AGS, they are split into various teams that focus on various components of the games code. Each team has a specialization, when a bug occurs you do not know if the error is occuring within one teams specific code, the connection point between teams, in the case of AGS the vast databases they are going to need to be utilizing, and of course the difficulties with handling hundreds of live servers that have constantly changing variables to account for all the players movements, changes, and well everything really.

We can not as consumers expect bugs to be fixed overnight or next day or in some cases even a week. Yes, some bugs can be handled this way because they are obvious to the developers where in their code that they messed up, wrong calculation or copy+paste mistake. But as I mentioned earlier there are a lot of components to this game so bugs could be occurring in any of them or there could be several that are effecting one thing.

Now back to the appreciation. I love the fishing mechanics of the game, some added difficulty, isn’t boring. I also love just all of the general resource gathering that occurs, yes it is time consuming, but I enjoy the mechanics of it nonetheless. I also enjoy the use of the Factions and Territories, I do not put one faction servers on the fault of the developers, but rather the consumers. In my server we nearly became a one faction server, but we in Covenant held strong with our two territories and as of yesterday started to make progress at gaining more territory. I also love the overall combat system, I love having to aim and actually hit things rather than just being locked on and I can look wherever I please and still hit the target.

Thank you AGS for giving us the game that you have and showing us the potential of New World in the future post launch bugs. I am really looking forward to expansions and seeing where this game takes off from here. Keep chugging a way at those keyboards to find the errors, and I know some of you are chugging away already developing our future expansions.

19 Likes
2

I am in love with the world building and sound in this game. The world looks amazing and the sound really adds to it.
I also enjoy the lost Ai. I can not tell you how many times I have missed a life staff shot at one of those buggers only to have him duck or dodge out of the way.

3 Likes
3

First MMO in years that I’ve actually enjoyed exploring. Leveling up in this game is something that happens while I’m out checking stuff out and it’s some beautiful vistas to check out. It really looks like an actual forest, an actual waterfall etc… don’t get me started on those sounds either, just wow.

Climbing around in the mountains a night looking for iron is terrific fun lol.

There are obviously flaws with it, but I’ve been thoroughly impressed by this game in my first few weeks of it.

2 Likes
4

The sound is amazing. I love here musket fire in the distance, or just the little aspects of my footsteps, and what sounds like noise from my own gear. Also, seriously, the amount of times a bugger has ducked right as I throw my spear. Like come one man, I just wanted to hit you with my spear, why did you have to duck at that exact moment.

2 Likes
5

I love stopping to fish at the top of a waterfall overlooking a forested valley. So serene and peaceful in that moment.

2 Likes
6

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.

7

Been loving this game heaps, so nice to have a game to make me quit wow.

The game feels fresh as to anything I’ve played I love not having mounts the world feels epic.

I love the combat in this game I just hit 60 and have been getting involved in the wars and invasions so good!

The game does have a few bugs that will get sorted I’m sure but I’m thankful to finally have a game that I love.

2 Likes
8

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.

2 Likes
9

@Scylvaen You have very effectively summed up how I feel about this game. :grinning:

Thank you very much for bringing some much needed positivity to the forum while still maintaining an honest and realistic outlook.

It has been a breath of fresh air.

And thank you AGS for all the work you have done and continue to do! I love getting immersed in New World.

2 Likes
10

yeah for a small indie company this is a neat little pet project, but the amount of glaring issues is embarrassing

1 Like
11

What a nice idea for a post.

Things I love about the game (or at least enjoy):

  • 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 :slight_smile: . 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.

4 Likes
12

I second this. It’s years that I didn’t see a game this good and beautiful coming out, and I played many many mmo rpgs.

Probably the fact that it is so good is also why so much people completely loose their self-control on the forums.

Kudos to devs and artists here, thank you and well done!

3 Likes
13

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.

Well done.

4 Likes
14

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!)

4 Likes
15

I love the exploration, I rarely use the fast travel and like to run everywhere, climbing, fishing is amazing.

4 Likes
16

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.

1 Like
17

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.

2 Likes
18

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.

19
2 Likes
20

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.
5 Likes