Hello!
I am here to talk about what could be the best part of this game but currently is the most pointless of all activities… The Open World Exploration/PVP.
I used to play other mmos in my life, and I loved the feeling of danger that games such as Tibia used to provide when exploring the world, especially in a pvp world.
This feeling comes from the fact that if I died exploring a cave with really dangerous mobs (or players), I would have a massive penalty and this fear is what made my experience more immersive and interesting, with good doses of adrenaline and fun with my friends.
When I first experienced the open world in new world I really felt that this could be a game that could provide me the same experience, but this is not the case, simply because you wont die exploring anywhere whatsoever (because the mobs are really easy to kill or avoid), and if you die (because of pvp for instance) you wont have any meaningful penalty (especially if you have a camp near by).
Last week, I was disputing an area with orichalcum ores with another pvp player and I killed him 5 times in a row, but he kept comming back because he had a camp near by. Eventually was not fun to kill him, I had no award to do that and I just gave up and left the spot for him, just because he was willing to be killed again and again to stay there, with no penalty for him or reward for me.
The worst part of it all is that just because you dont have any penalty for dying, you also wont get any meaningful reward by exploring or surviving tough situationgs, thus making these exploration activities (especially with pvp on) not interesting whatsoever, when I believe they could be the absolute best part of this game.
One clear example is the best game of this year: Elden Ring. You have a very interesting risk reward scenario for exploring dangerous areas (also with a pvp element within it).
This is exactly what made the game so good for me, and I believe could make new world (like other mmos already done in the past) also a much better game overall, because the whole basis for a GREAT game is here, and I think AGS just need to use this platform the right way to made it A LOT more interesting.
I really am not a forum heavy user, and I believe this is the first time I took the time to think and write about something in a game forum, I really hope AGS is reading and considering this, as they said in their latest Dev Update videos they would.
I have such high hopes for this game, but I am not having fun now with exploring and pvp in open world.