Amazon Game Studios' New World had one of the most successful launches this year, with over 700,000 concurrent players active on just the first day, and then an all-time peak of over 900,000 players on Steam just a few days later. MMOs are rarely this successful on launch, and New World managed to keep its numbers high for a long while, even though they eventually started to dwindle. Some players within the community think this happened because of how hard New World has been affected by glitches, to a point where Gold duplication severely damaged the economy of the game.
The situation has drastically improved in terms of bugs, though, as Amazon has started handing out bans to cheaters and exploiters, including New World streamers who had been caught doing something they shouldn't have. This, combined with a series of fixes and future plans to address longstanding issues, the game is now in a good state that warrants the return of those who left early. However, bugs are not the only reason why some players quit the game so early or are on the fence about doing so, and Reddit posts highlight another issue that is far from being solved by Amazon - at least for a while.
The Good and The Bad in New World
Among the current glitches, New World players are still experiencing some issues with the AoE skills and targeted abilities of the Ice Gauntlet and the Fire Staff, particularly when trying to engage enemies that are laying down or when obstacles are in the way. Another issue, which is more related to design choices at launch than a proper bug, is that some players are lamenting the impact of AoE skills in Faction Wars, which already promote that specific playstyle due to players having to stand still to capture objectives. In fact, it seems that it's Amazon's intention to address that and make Wars more rewarding for those who play skillfully, rather than those who spam area attacks and abilities.
Furthermore, Amazon is planning on linking all trading posts to reduce the impact on New World's economy with settlement-based prices that make the experience of purchasing or selling anything more divisive and complicated. This would also allow players to reduce the amount of Azoth spent on the fast travels needed to jump between settlements to get the best items from each of them, thus making the experience more enjoyable and fast paced. These changes are already shaping the game to be in a better state than it ever was, and yet this isn't enough to keep all players engaged, as more recent numbers show.
The main negative, according to the online community, seems to be Amazon's choice to reskin enemies and recycle quests, making for boring and repetitive content at all levels - which is particularly bad at level 60. Enemy variety is not one of New World's strong suits indeed, and some encounters feel like the same over and over again, all the way from level 1 to the level cap. Zombies, wolves, ghosts, and pirates are just some of the examples, but it goes to show that while recycling assets is a necessary evil that most games employ, New World needs more variety than it currently has.
The other problem resides in how quests were designed, with many Faction missions being the same set of two or three presets that mostly change the location and the number of enemies to kill or crates to loot. Some story missions are not too diverse from these, and they often consist of the classic fetch quests from other MMOs, or tasks that require players to go and kill several enemies to unlock another subtask. This criticism is useful for the game, but it is also true that these things are so rooted into New World that it's unlikely Amazon will go ahead and rework the entire game from the ground up within the span of a few months. Ultimately, change is probably coming with major patches over time, but this specific issue is something that will need more work to be fixed.
New World is out now for PC.